The social media network X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
