The social media network X has provoked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
