The social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
