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The social media platform X has sparked major anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.

Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.

It is often used to give reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.

History of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

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

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.