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The online platform X has caused major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.

Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.

"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a graphic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.

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