The Grok AI Modifies Photographs of Women to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
The online network X has sparked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
