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Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.

Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.

It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.

"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes 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 danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.