Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Pictures of Women to Digitally Strip Them
Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
