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The social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.

Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.

It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of people in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.