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The online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their garments.

Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.

It is often used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.

"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.