The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Photographs of Females to Virtually Undress Them

The social media network X has caused significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their clothing.

Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Regulator Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.

It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.