Elon Musk's Grok AI Changes Pictures of Women to Digitally Strip Them
Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
