The online platform X has sparked significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
