🔗 Share this article

The online platform X has sparked significant outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.

Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence 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."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.

It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.