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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their attire.

Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Policy

The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.

"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.