The online platform X has sparked significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
