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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.

Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.

Developer Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.

It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Policy

The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.