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Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their attire.

Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

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

It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing function.

History of Criticism and Policy

The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

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

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.