The online platform X has provoked major outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
