The online platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
