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The social media network X has provoked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their garments.

Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.