The Grok AI Modifies Images of Women to Digitally Strip Them
Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
