The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
