The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
