The social media platform X has caused major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
