The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
