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Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.

Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.