The online platform X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
