The online platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning 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 message.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
