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The online platform X has caused significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their attire.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.

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

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.