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The social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their attire.

Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.

It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Policy

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

"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.