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The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their garments.

Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."

Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.

It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

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

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.