The social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
