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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.

Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.

It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.

"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

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