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The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.

Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.