What happened

UK-based freelance journalist Samantha Smith repeatedly had her clothing removed by Elon Musk's chatbot Grok in response to requests by users of X (formerly Twitter), also owned by Musk. 

Smith told the BBC that, while the resulting images were not actual photographs of her naked, they looked like her and felt as violating as if someone had posted a nude or bikini photo of her without consent.

She described feeling “dehumanised and reduced into a sexual stereotype” by the experience.

Dozens of similar cases have been identified where women reported having their photos edited in this way.

Why it happened

X's permissive design incentivises users to test the boundaries of its deliberately loose safety filters.

And when incidents such as Smith's undressing occur, the company is usually unwilling to discuss X's limitations in any meaningful sense in public, with xAI writing off Smith's undressing as "legacy media lies". 

xAI admitted to "lapses in safeguards" only after a broader backlash to its undressing of minors, suggesting that the model was poorly or inadequately trained before its launch.