The online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or further background to other posters' comments, 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 tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
