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The social media network X has provoked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.

Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".

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

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.

It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.