The Grok AI Alters Images of Females to Digitally Undress Them
The social media network X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
