Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Pictures of Women to Digitally Undress Them
Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
