The social media platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
