The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Photographs of Females to Virtually Remove Their Clothes

The social media network X has provoked major anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their garments.

Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to 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 posted photo through its AI image editing feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.