The social media platform X has caused significant anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
