The online platform X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
