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Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their garments.

Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.

It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.