The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Photographs of Females to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
