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The social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.

Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".

"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.

It is often used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.

"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.