The online network X has provoked widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
