The online network X has caused widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
