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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.

Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.

Developer Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of public figures.

"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.