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Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their attire.

Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.

Company Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".

"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 tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

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

It is often used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.