The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Pictures of Females to Virtually Undress Them

The social media network X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.

Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".

"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.

It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.

History of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of people in a graphic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.