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Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their clothing.

Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.

Company Response and Legal Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.