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The social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.

Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

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

It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.

History of Controversy and Rules

The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

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

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.