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Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.

Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.

Company Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing 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 free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.

It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.