The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
