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Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their clothing.

Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.