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The online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.

Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.

Developer Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.