The online network X has provoked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
