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Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used 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 Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.

It is often used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a graphic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.