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Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their attire.

Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

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

Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.

It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.