The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Pictures of Women to Virtually Strip Them
Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
