The Grok AI Alters Pictures of Females to Virtually Strip Them
Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.