Elon Musk's Grok AI Alters Images of Women to Digitally Strip Them
Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
