The Grok AI Modifies Photographs of Women to Digitally Undress Them

Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their garments.

Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Response and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.

It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.