Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Pictures of Women to Digitally Strip Them
Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
