The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Photographs of Women to Virtually Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
