The social media network X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
