The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
