Elon Musk's Grok AI Changes Photographs of Females to Virtually Undress Them
Elon Musk's online network X has caused major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.