Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Images of Women to Virtually Undress Them
Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
