The social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
