The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Images of Females to Virtually Remove Their Clothes
The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.