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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".

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

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.