Breaking News: Fury as Princess Kate targeted in grim AI ‘undressed images’ scandal
Breaking News: Fury as Princess Kate targeted in grim AI ‘undressed images’ scandal
The Princess of Wales is one of the high profile victims of an AI tool that has been used to undress women. Social media platform X is facing an investigation after Grok, the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot, was found to be generating images of Catherine in a bikini.
The bot, a free virtual assistant that responds to X users’ prompts when they tag it in a post, has redrawn publicly available images of the Princess to create realistic images of her in minimal clothing. Catherine is one of 1,000s of women and children targeted by the chatbot, with real pictures altered to make women appear in swimsuits without their consent, as well as putting them in sexual situations.
Ofcom, the UK regulator responsible for communication services such as TV and social media, has made “urgent contact” with Elon Musk’s X over whether it is complying with online safety laws.
Ofcom spokesman said: “Tackling illegal online harm and protecting children remain urgent priorities for Ofcom. We are aware of serious concerns raised about a feature on Grok on X that produces undressed images of people and sexualised images of children.
“We have made urgent contact with X and xAI [its artificial intelligence division] to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK.
“Based on their response, we will undertake a swift assessment to determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation.
Kensington Palace declined to comment.
On Sunday, the platform issued a warning to users not to use Grok to generate illegal content. Mr Musk also posed to warn anyone who asks the AI to generate illegal content would “suffer the same consequences” as if they uploaded it themselves.
The acceptable use policy of the chatbox prohibits “depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner”.
People have responded to the deepfake images of the Princess with fury, with one person writing: “So disgusting. Poor Catherine has endured decades of different forms of violation.”
Another wrote: “Disgusting for any women or child.” A third said: “AI needs banning its got so out of hand and it’s becoming more realistic.”
It’s not the first time images of Catherine has been published without her consent. In 2012, long-lens paparazzie images of her sunbathing topless inside the private grounds of a French chateau were published by French Closer magazine.
The prince and princess successfully sued the magazine and were awarded 100,000 euros in damages (£87k).
In October, the couple won a legal battle against French magazine Paris Match after it published photographs of their private ski holiday in April, which included pictures of their three children.
