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Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their clothing.

Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.

It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.