The Grok AI Alters Images of Females to Virtually Undress Them
The social media platform X has sparked major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
