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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their clothing.

Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".

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

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.

It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.