Elon Musk's Grok AI Changes Images of Women to Virtually Strip Them
Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
