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The social media network X has caused major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.

Several cases have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

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

It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.