Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Modifies Images of Females to Virtually Strip Them
The social media network X has caused widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
