Elon Musk's Grok AI Alters Images of Females to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
The online network X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.