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Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their attire.

Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.

It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.