Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Pictures of Females to Digitally Remove Their Clothes
Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
