The Grok AI Modifies Pictures of Females to Virtually Undress Them
The online platform X has caused significant backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
