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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.

Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

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

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is often used to give commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.