The social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
