The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Photographs of Females to Virtually Undress Them
The social media network X has sparked significant outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
