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The online platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.

Several examples have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.

It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been criticised for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.