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Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their clothing.

Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.

Company Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".

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

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.

It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.