The online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
