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The social media network X has caused significant backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their clothing.

Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a post.

It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Policy

The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.