The social media network X has caused major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, 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 "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
