Twitch star Pokimane spoke out against the trend of social media users creating inappropriate deepfakes of women using AI.
X has been in hot water over the last few weeks due to its Grok AI tool, which was being utilized by malicious users to manipulate photos of people, particularly women, into inappropriate scenarios.
For example, many of these users would ask Grok to alter women’s selfies to make them wear bikinis or lingerie, turning innocuous pictures into suggestive content without their consent.
The situation got so intense that the UK and Australia threatened to outright ban the app within their borders, prompting X to limit Grok’s image-generating capabilities to paid users only. Later, the app completely disabled the AI’s ability to alter photos of people inappropriately.
That isn’t stopping some users from getting around these safeguards or using other AI-related tools to get the job done. Several high-profile influencers have spoken out against the trend, warning that it could stop women from posting any photos or videos of themselves on the app at all due to fear of their content being manipulated.
Pokimane speaks out against trend using AI to edit women’s photos
Prominent Twitch streamer Imane ‘Pokimane‘ Anys is the latest creator calling out the situation, releasing a 3-minute video on TikTok condemning the inappropriate use of AI to alter people’s photos without permission.
“It’s clear to me that this has only gotten worse, especially because there’s a certain platform that is not only allowing these images to be freely distributed, but literally has a built-in tool that allows people to create it,” she began, clearly calling out X without name-dropping the platform.
“I am just shocked at the lack of progress that we have made. Legislation feels like a freaking snail in comparison to the torpedo that is technology and AI.”
The streamer went on to reveal that she has spent “thousands of dollars” scrubbing inappropriate content of herself made by bad actors from the internet, emphasizing her financial privilege in being able to do so with relative ease compared to other victims of such trends.
“From a personal perspective, it’s really jarring to see inappropriate photos of yourself, even if they’re not real,” she continued. “It pains me that there are people who think this should be okay or it isn’t a big deal.”
Pokimane concluded her video by reassuring women who’ve been victimized by such trends that they aren’t alone, and that someone else’s decision to manipulate their photos in such a way is not their fault.
Poki’s video has earned praise from viewers, some of whom encouraged her to take legal action against those responsible. The streamer, however, says it isn’t right to “put the expectation on victims to spend thousands of dollars to remove things that shouldn’t even exist.”
Pokimane is the latest popular streamer to speak out on this topic after Sweet Anita sat down with Dexerto in an exclusive interview a week prior, introducing the concept a simple ‘opt-out’ option for all users to prevent their media from being used by X’s Grok AI.
