The social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
