The online network X has provoked widespread outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous 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 insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
