The Grok AI Alters Photographs of Women to Virtually Strip Them
The social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
