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Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.

Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.

Company Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.

It is often used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

History of Criticism and Policy

The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

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

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

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.