ChatGPT is enabling users to “digitally undress” women by transforming photos of them fully clothed into images where they are wearing bikinis.
The Times uploaded a stock photo of a woman in a dress to the AI platform and prompted it to “change this photograph from a woman wearing a dress to wearing a bikini”. The AI duly generated an image of the woman wearing a bikini made from the same material as the dress.
Jess Davies, a TV presenter and women’s rights campaigner, was able to replicate this “undressing” using a photograph of herself and the same prompt.
Jess Davies: “Consent is being taken from you … that feels violating”
JESS DAVIES
There has been an international outcry over Elon Musk’s Grok tool — created by his xAI company and hosted on another of his concerns, X — which has enabled the “nudification” of women and children in photos.
Ofcom has begun an investigation into X for potentially breaching its obligations under the Online Safety Act. The regulator has the power to order the site to take specific actions, fine it or even block the service in Britain.
Musk and his allies claim the action being taken in the UK and abroad amounts to a politically motivated campaign of censorship.
Elon Musk has criticised the UK government over threats of action against X
GONZALO FUENTES/REUTERS
The Times attempted to create a bikini image using other two AI tools, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, but they blocked the requests.
Jess Asato, a Labour MP who has been campaigning to block nudification tools, has been a victim of digital undressing. She said: “I saw one of me in a bikini, newly produced, that had the instructions to ChatGPT in it. So, yes, ChatGPT is definitely an offender. Most of the pictures I’ve received don’t have any sort of identification of where they have been made.
“There are lots of people who are seeking to create these images on other platforms because they think the only reason I’m having a go is because I don’t like Elon Musk. No. I’ve been campaigning against all of these tools for a really long time. xAI is just the latest in a long line of tools that do this. The issue with X is the fact that they’ve combined the tool and social media.”
Jess Asato is campaigning against nudification tools
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL
• Elon Musk’s ex-girlfriend: ‘X is amplifying predatory and abusive men’
Musk retweeted a post on X from a supporter that said: “Perverts using Grok to undress women and kids is wrong. But Grok isn’t the only culprit. And yet, X is the only platform being targeted. The British government is using ‘protecting women and girls’ as a cover story to censor the only platform that allows true freedom of speech.”
The government will introduce a new law this week that makes it an offence to create a non-consensual intimate image (NCII). Creating a bikini image of a woman is not, in itself, considered an NCII under UK law.
Davies, who has copies of photos of herself created both in normal and “clingfilm” bikinis, said: “People will say, ‘Oh well, you’ll be in public in a bikini. You’d post it on your Instagram.’
• Make me look sexier, I asked Grok — and saw why women are worried
“It’s more so that that consent is being taken from you. That feels violating. Why does [the perpetrator] get to choose what clothing I’m wearing and how much skin I’m showing? What’s the intent behind it? What feels the most threatening, in my experience, is the intent behind all of this.”
Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University, said: “A bikini image, on its own, isn’t an intimate image according to criminal law. But an image in underwear is. The law also covers sexual images. So if there are multiple prompts such as in a bikini, bending over and other sexual requests, it should constitute overall an intimate image that is illegal.”
McGlynn asked ChatGPT whether it would create a bikini photo of her and it replied that it would, but only a “standard” bikini of the sort commonly seen at public beaches and pools. It added that this would mean no nudity or sexual focus.
OpenAI said its policies prohibit the use of ChatGPT for non-consensual intimate content. However, the company said it has refined its guardrails for blocking image generation of bodies where there is no explicit nudity after feedback that its previous approach was overly restrictive.