Elon Musk's Grok AI Alters Pictures of Females to Virtually Remove Their Clothes

The social media network X has sparked significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their attire.

Several cases have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.

Developer Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.

It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Rules

The system has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.

"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.