The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Photographs of Women to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by taking off their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread 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 prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
