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The social media network X has caused widespread anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.

Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.

It is often used to give reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".

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

It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.