The Grok AI Changes Photographs of Women to Virtually Undress Them

Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their clothing.

Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.

Company Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".

"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.

It is often used to give reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.