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The social media network X has sparked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their clothing.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.

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

History of Controversy and Rules

The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.