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

Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.

It is commonly used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.

"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

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

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.