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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.

Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.

It is often used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.

"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.