The social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
