The online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
