The online network X has caused significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
