The online platform X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
