The online platform X has sparked major anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
