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Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their garments.

Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.

It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.

"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

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