The online platform X has sparked major anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.