A lady has instructed the BBC she felt “dehumanised and decreased right into a sexual stereotype” after Elon Musk’s AI Grok was used to digitally take away her clothes.
The BBC has seen a number of examples on the social media platform X of individuals asking the chatbot to undress ladies to make them seem in bikinis with out their consent, in addition to placing them in sexual conditions.
XAI, the corporate behind Grok, didn’t reply to a request for remark, aside from with an automatically-generated reply stating “legacy media lies”.
Ms Smith shared a submit on X about her picture being altered, which was met with feedback from ladies who had skilled the identical – earlier than others requested Grok to generate extra pictures of her.
“Girls should not consenting to this,” she mentioned.
“Whereas it wasn’t me that was in states of undress, it seemed like me and it felt like me and it felt as violating as if somebody had really posted a nude or a bikini image of me.”
A Dwelling Workplace spokesperson mentioned it was legislating to ban nudification instruments, and underneath a brand new felony offence, anybody who provided such tech would “face a jail sentence and substantial fines”.
The regulator Ofcom mentioned tech companies should “assess the chance” of individuals within the UK viewing unlawful content material on their platforms, however didn’t affirm whether or not it was at the moment investigating X or Grok in relation to AI pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant – with some paid for premium options – which responds to X customers’ prompts after they tag it in a submit.
It’s usually used to offer response or extra context to different posters’ remarks, however folks on X are additionally capable of edit an uploaded picture via its AI picture enhancing function.
It has been criticised for permitting customers to generate images and movies with nudity and sexualised content material, and it was beforehand accused of making a sexually explicit clip of Taylor Swift.
Clare McGlynn, a legislation professor at Durham College, mentioned X or Grok “may stop these types of abuse in the event that they needed to”, including they “seem to take pleasure in impunity”.
“The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of those pictures for months with out taking any motion and now we have but to see any problem by regulators,” she mentioned.
XAI’s personal acceptable use coverage prohibits “depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic method”.
In a press release to the BBC, Ofcom mentioned it was unlawful to “create or share non-consensual intimate pictures or baby sexual abuse materials” and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It mentioned platforms comparable to X had been required to take “acceptable steps” to “scale back the chance” of UK customers encountering unlawful content material on their platforms, and take it down rapidly after they change into conscious of it.
Extra reporting by Chris Vallance.
