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The online network X has caused major anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their garments.

Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.

Company Response and Legal Position

XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.

History of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.