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Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.

Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.

It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

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

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.