The social media network X has provoked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production 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 acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
