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Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.

Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.

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

Background of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.

"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

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