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The social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their clothing.

Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.

It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

History of Criticism and Policy

The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.