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Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by taking off their attire.

Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.

Developer Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.

It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.