Elon Musk's Grok AI Alters Photographs of Women to Digitally Undress Them
Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.