The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
