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The social media platform X has provoked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.

Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

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

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Rules

The system has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.