The social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
