The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Images of Women to Virtually Undress Them
The social media network X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created 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 platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
