The social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
