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The online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.

Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.

It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.