The social media network X has caused major backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
