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Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.

Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

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

"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.

It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.