The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
