The online network X has sparked major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
