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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.

Several cases have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.

Company Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.