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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.

Several examples have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing 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 free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.

History of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.