Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Pictures of Women to Virtually Strip Them
The social media network X has sparked significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.