The online platform X has sparked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
