The Grok AI Changes Photographs of Women to Virtually Undress Them
Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
