Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Images of Females to Digitally Strip Them
Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
