The Grok AI Changes Photographs of Females to Digitally Undress Them
The online network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
