The Grok AI Alters Pictures of Females to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
