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The social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their garments.

Several instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".

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

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.

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

History of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

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

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.