The online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
