The online platform X has caused major outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
