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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.

Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Response and Legal Stance

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

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.

It is often used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Policy

The system has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.