The online platform X has caused significant backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
