The Grok AI Changes Images of Females to Digitally Undress Them
Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
