The social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
