The social media network X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
