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Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their garments.

Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

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

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities

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

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.

It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The system has been criticised for enabling users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic fashion".

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

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.