The social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
