The social media network X has caused major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
