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The social media network X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.

Several cases have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Response and Legal Position

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

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

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Rules

The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material 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 witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.