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Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their clothing.

Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.

Company Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.

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

History of Criticism and Policy

The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.