The online network X has caused widespread outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
