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The online platform X has caused major outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.

Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".

"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.

It is commonly used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.

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

XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.