Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Photographs of Women to Virtually Strip Them
The social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify 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 functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
