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The online platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their clothing.

Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.

Developer Response and Legal Position

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

A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.

"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".

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

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.