The Grok AI Changes Photographs of Women to Virtually Undress Them

The social media platform X has provoked significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.

Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.

It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' 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 tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of people in a graphic manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.