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Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their attire.

Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Reaction and Legal Position

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

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".

"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.

It is often used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

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

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.