The social media network X has caused major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
