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The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.

Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

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

It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.

History of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

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

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.