Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Photographs of Females to Virtually Undress Them
The online network X has sparked major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
