The online platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
