The Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Photographs of Females to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
