The Grok AI Modifies Photographs of Females to Virtually Strip Them
The online network X has caused significant outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
