The social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
