The online network X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
