The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Pictures of Women to Virtually Strip Them
The online network X has provoked significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
