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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.

Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

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

It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.