The social media platform X has sparked major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
