The online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
