The social media platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
