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The social media platform X has caused major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.

Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.

It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures 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 bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.