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Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.

Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.

Company Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".

"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.

It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.

"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.