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The online platform X has provoked major outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.

Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

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

It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.

"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.