The social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
