The online platform X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
