Elon Musk's Grok AI Changes Pictures of Women to Virtually Strip Them
Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
