The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
