Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Photographs of Women to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.