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The online network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by taking off their clothing.

Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Rules

The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.