The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Pictures of Females to Virtually Remove Their Clothes
The social media network X has provoked significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
