Elon Musk’s Grok AI alters images of women to digitally remove their clothes
Elon Musk’s social media platform X caused outrage after it used AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing people’s clothing.
The BBC has seen several examples of women undressing to appear in bikinis without their consent, as well as engaging them in sexual situations.
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to a request for comment other than an auto-generated response saying “old media lies.”
But journalist Samantha Smith told the BBC’s Prime Minister program that she felt “dehumanised and reduced to a sexual stereotype” after such an image was created of her.
“Women are not okay with this,” he said.
“It wasn’t me who was undressing, but it looked like me, it looked like me, and it felt violating, like someone had posted a photo of me naked or in a bikini.”
A Home Office spokesman said legislation had been introduced to ban nudification devices and under a new criminal offence, anyone providing such technology would “face imprisonment and significant fines”.
Regulator Ofcom said tech firms should assess the risk of people in the UK viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok over the AI images.
Grok is a free AI assistant that responds to prompts from X users when they tag them in a post, with some premium features available for a fee.
It’s often used to react to other posters’ comments or provide more context, but folks at X can also edit an uploaded image via the AI image editing feature.
It has been criticized for allowing users to create photos and videos of nudity and sexual content, and has previously been Making a racy video of Taylor Swift.
Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University, said X or Grok “could prevent such abuse if they wished”, adding that they “seem to enjoy impunity”.
“The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images without any action for months, and we have yet to see any challenges from regulators,” he said.
XAI itself acceptable use policy It prohibits “pornographic portrayals of persons’ likenesses.”
In a statement to the BBC, Ofcom said it was illegal to “create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material” and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created by artificial intelligence.
He said platforms such as
Additional reporting by Chris Vallance.
