The online network X has provoked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology 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 a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
