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Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their clothing.

Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

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

Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.

It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.