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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.

Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.

It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.