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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.

Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.

It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.

History of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.