Elon Musk's Grok AI Changes Images of Women to Digitally Strip Them
The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
