Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Pictures of Females to Digitally Undress Them
Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
