The social media platform X has sparked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
