The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
