The social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
