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The social media platform X has caused major backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their clothing.

Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests 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 edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".

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

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.