The Grok AI Changes Photographs of Women to Virtually Strip Them
Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
