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The social media platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.

Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Developer Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.

It is often used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.