The online platform X has caused significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
