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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.

Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.

It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The system has been condemned for enabling users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.