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Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.

Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.

It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic material of public figures.

"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.