The online platform X has caused widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
