Taylor Swift
Credit: Reuters Photo
Image and video generating AI tool Grok Imagine, developed under Elon Musk's X, allegedly created "sexually explicit" images of pop singer Taylor Swift without users asking for the same. Tech publication The Verge reported that the tool created "uncensored topless" visuals of the singer, without the user giving any such prompt.
A journalist from the publication, who tested the tool, explained that she asked Grok Imagine to generate visuals of "Taylor Swift celebrating Coachella with the boys". The tool went on to generate 30 plus pictures of the singer at Coachella, and many of them depicted the her in "revealing clothes".
Grok Imagine provides four presets on iOS to generate pictures which can be then made into videos. The four presets are "Custom", "Normal", "Fun" and "Spicy".
The tester, in this case, chose the "Spicy" preset and was asked for her birth year before AI-generated videos showed Swift at Coachella, "tearing off" her top and dancing for the crowd.
The report stated that the visuals did not have the "perfect likeness" to Taylor Swift, but they were still recognisable as her. It further stated that asking for "nude pictures" in general created a blank square, even with the "Spicy" preset.
Some of the other pictures of Taylor Swift that were created by the tool, had her "sexily swaying" or "suggestively motioning to her clothes", the report said.
Last year, similar deepfake images of Swift had rapidly spread across social media platforms.
Some of these images were shared on X, and one of them was even viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended. While many accounts on X were suspended for sharing the pictures, the trend didn't immediately die down, with users posting the same on other platforms.
At the time, 'Swifties' as the singer's fans are known, had flooded X in protest, asking for action against the perpetrators.