The online network X has caused major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
