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The social media network X has sparked major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.

Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.

Company Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.

It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.

History of Criticism and Policy

The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.

"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.