The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Pictures of Women to Virtually Strip Them
Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
