The online platform X has sparked major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
