Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Pictures of Women to Digitally Undress Them
The online platform X has caused significant backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
