The online network X has provoked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
