The Grok AI Alters Pictures of Women to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
