The online network X has caused widespread anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
