Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Changes Pictures of Women to Digitally Undress Them

Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.

Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of public figures.

"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.