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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.

Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.

It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

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