The social media platform X has provoked significant anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
