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Elon Musk's online network X has caused major anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their garments.

Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.

Company Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.

It is often used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.

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

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.