The social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
