The online platform X has provoked widespread outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
