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The social media network X has provoked widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.

Numerous instances have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.

History of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.