The social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
