The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
