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The social media network X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their garments.

Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.

It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit way".

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

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.