The online network X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
