The social media platform X has caused major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
