The social media platform X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
