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The online platform X has caused major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their clothing.

Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.

It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.