The social media network X has provoked major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
