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The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.

Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.

History of Criticism and Policy

The system has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

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

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.