The social media network X has sparked significant anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
