The online network X has sparked widespread backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
