The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Images of Women to Virtually Remove Their Clothes

Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their garments.

Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.

Company Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.

It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of public figures.

"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.