The online platform X has sparked major backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
