The social media platform X has sparked major outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
