The Grok AI Alters Photographs of Females to Virtually Strip Them
The social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
