Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Images of Women to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
The social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
