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Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.

Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Company Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.

History of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.