The online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
