Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Images of Women to Virtually Undress Them
Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.