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The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.

Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.

"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".

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

It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.