The social media network X has sparked major outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.