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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.

Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.

Company Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".

"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.

It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

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