The online network X has caused significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
