The online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
