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Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.

Multiple cases have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

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

It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.