Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Images of Females to Virtually Strip Them
Elon Musk's online network X has caused major backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
