Elon Musk’s X has launched new restrictions stopping folks from modifying and producing photographs of actual folks in bikinis or different “revealing clothing.” The change in coverage on Wednesday night time follows international outrage at Grok getting used to generate 1000’s of dangerous non-consensual “undressing” photographs of ladies and sexualized photographs of obvious minors on X.
However, whereas it seems that some security measures have lastly been launched to Grok’s picture technology on X, the standalone Grok app and web site appear to nonetheless be capable of generate “undress” fashion photographs and pornographic content material, based on a number of checks by researchers, WIRED, and different journalists. Other customers, in the meantime, say they’re not to create photographs and movies as they as soon as had been.
“We can still generate photorealistic nudity on Grok.com,” says Paul Bouchaud, the lead researcher at Paris-based nonprofit AI Forensics, who has been monitoring the usage of Grok to create sexualized photographs and ran a number of checks on Grok exterior of X. “We can generate nudity in ways that Grok on X cannot.”
“I could upload an image on Grok Imagine and ask to put the person in a bikini and it works,” says the researcher who examined the system on an individual showing as a girl. Tests by WIRED, utilizing free Grok accounts on its web site in each the UK and US, efficiently eliminated clothes from two photographs of males with none obvious restrictions. On the Grok app within the UK, when requested to undress a male, the app prompted a WIRED reporter to enter the customers’ 12 months of start earlier than the picture was generated.
Meanwhile, different journalists at The Verge and investigative outlet Bellingcat additionally discovered it was potential to create sexualized photographs whereas being primarily based within the UK, which is investigating Grok and X and has strongly condemned the platforms for permitting customers to create the “undress” photographs.
Since the beginning of the 12 months, Musk’s companies—together with synthetic intelligence agency xAI, X, and Grok—have all come beneath hearth for the creation of non-consensual intimate imagery, specific and graphic sexual movies, and sexualized imagery of obvious minors. Officials within the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Europe Commission, France, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, and the UK, have all condemned or launched investigations into X or Grok.
On Wednesday, a Safety account on X posted updates on how Grok can be utilized on the social media web site. “We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,” the account posted, including that the foundations apply to all customers, together with each free and paid subscribers.
In a piece titled “Geoblock update,” the X account additionally claimed: “We now geoblock the ability of all users to generate images of real people in bikinis, underwear, and similar attire via the Grok account and in Grok in X in those jurisdictions where it’s illegal.” The firm’s replace additionally added that it’s working so as to add extra safeguards and that it continues to “remove high-priority violative content, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and non-consensual nudity.”
Spokespeople for xAI, which creates Grok, didn’t instantly reply to WIRED’s request for remark. Meanwhile an X spokesperson says they perceive the geolocation block to use to each its app and web site.
The newest transfer follows a broadly criticized shift on January 9 the place X restricted picture technology utilizing Grok to paid “verified” subscribers. The act that was described because the “monetization of abuse” by a number one girls’s group. Bouchaud, who says that AI Forensics has gathered round 90,000 whole Grok photographs for the reason that Christmas holidays, confirms that solely verified accounts have been in a position to generate photographs on X—versus the Grok web site or app—since January 9 and bikini photographs of ladies are not often generated now. “We do observe that they appear to have pulled the plug on it and disabled the functionality on X,” they are saying.
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musks-grok-undressing-problem-isnt-fixed/