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Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.

Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.