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

Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".

"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

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

It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.

History of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.