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

The online network X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.

Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".

"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.