Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Alters Pictures of Females to Digitally Strip Them

The online network X has caused significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.

Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.

It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.

"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a graphic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.