The online network X has provoked major backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
