The social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
