Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Images of Women to Virtually Undress Them
Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
