The social media platform X has provoked major outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
