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The online platform X has caused significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their garments.

Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Developer Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".

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

Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.

It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.

History of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.