The social media platform X has caused significant anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
