The Grok AI Changes Pictures of Women to Virtually Undress Them
The online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
