The online platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
