The online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
