The online network X has provoked significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
