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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their clothing.

Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".

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

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.

It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.

"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

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

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.