The social media platform X has caused significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
