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Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their garments.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.

History of Controversy and Rules

The system has been criticised for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.

"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.