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Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.

Several examples have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".

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

It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.