Elon Musk's Grok AI Changes Photographs of Women to Virtually Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
