The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Pictures of Women to Virtually Undress Them

Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their garments.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."

Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.

It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.

"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.

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