Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Pictures of Females to Virtually Remove Their Clothes
The social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
