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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.

Company Response and Regulatory Position

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

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.

"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.