The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Images of Females to Digitally Remove Their Clothes

The social media network X has caused significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.

Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.

Company Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

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

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.

It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

History of Controversy and Policy

The system has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.