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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their clothing.

Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.

It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

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

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.