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The online network X has provoked significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their garments.

Several instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

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

It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.