The online network X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
