The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Pictures of Women to Digitally Undress Them
The online network X has sparked significant outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
