The online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
