The social media network X has caused major backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
