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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.

Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.

It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

History of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".

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

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.