The Grok AI Alters Pictures of Females to Digitally Strip Them

The online platform X has caused major outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.

Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.

It is often used to give reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.

History of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.