The social media network X has provoked major outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
