The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
