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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.

Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.

It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Criticism and Policy

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

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

XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of people in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.