The online platform X has provoked significant anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing 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 terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
