Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Pictures of Females to Virtually Undress Them
The social media network X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
