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Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.

Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.

It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The system has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.

"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.