The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Pictures of Women to Virtually Remove Their Clothes
The online network X has provoked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
