The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
