The online network X has provoked significant anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
