The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
