Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Pictures of Women to Digitally Undress Them
Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.