Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Photographs of Women to Digitally Undress Them
The social media network X has sparked significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
