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Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their clothing.

Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.

It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.

History of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.