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Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their attire.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

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 presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.

It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Policy

The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.

"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.