The social media network X has sparked significant anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
