The online platform X has caused significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
