Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Pictures of Women to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
The online network X has provoked significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
