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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.

Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.

Company Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.

It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.