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The social media network X has sparked significant outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their garments.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.

It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".

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

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.