The online platform X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
