The social media platform X has sparked major backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
