The online platform X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
