The online platform X has caused significant anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
