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The social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.

Several instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.

It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.

"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.