The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Photographs of Females to Virtually Strip Them

The online network X has provoked major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their garments.

Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of public figures.

"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.