The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
