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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.

Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.

It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.