The online platform X has caused widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
