The online network X has sparked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
