The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
