The social media platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
