Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Photographs of Women to Virtually Remove Their Clothes
The social media network X has provoked major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
