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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.

Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

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

It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.