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Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.

Several cases have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.

It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.