The online network X has caused significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by taking off their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
