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The online platform X has provoked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their clothing.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.

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

Background of Criticism and Rules

The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing 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 prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.