The social media network X has sparked significant anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
