The social media network X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
