The online network X has sparked major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
