Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Images of Females to Virtually Undress Them
The social media platform X has caused significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
