The social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
