The online platform X has caused major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
