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The social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their garments.

Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.

History of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.