Elon Musk's Grok AI Modifies Photographs of Females to Virtually Strip Them
Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
