The social media network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
