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The online platform X has sparked major backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.

Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

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

It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Policy

The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.