The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Photographs of Females to Virtually Undress Them
The social media network X has provoked major anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
