The social media network X has sparked significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
