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

The social media network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.

Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Position and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.

It is often used to give reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.

"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a graphic manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.