Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Pictures of Women to Virtually Undress Them
The online network X has sparked widespread outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
