The online network X has caused significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
