Elon Musk's Grok AI Alters Pictures of Women to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
The online platform X has caused major outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.