The social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
