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The online network X has sparked widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.

Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.

It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.

History of Criticism and Policy

The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.