The social media network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
