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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.

Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.

It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

History of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a pornographic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.