The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Photographs of Women to Virtually Strip Them
The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.