The social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
