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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their garments.

Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.