The online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
