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The online platform X has sparked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their clothing.

Several examples have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.

It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.