The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Photographs of Women to Virtually Strip Them
The social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
