The online network X has caused widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
