The online platform X has caused major anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
