The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
