The social media network X has caused major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
