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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.

Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

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

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.