The social media platform X has sparked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
