The online network X has sparked major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
