Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Pictures of Females to Digitally Strip Them
The social media network X has caused widespread anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
