The Grok AI Modifies Pictures of Females to Virtually Undress Them
The online platform X has provoked major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
