A Labour Member of Parliament has initiated legal proceedings against Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence enterprise after alleging that its Grok tool facilitated the creation of unauthorized sexualized images of her. This incident is part of a broader trend of such images that emerged on the platform X earlier this year.
Jess Asato, the MP representing Lowestoft, expressed her distress in January upon discovering that the AI tool depicted her in a bikini without her consent, describing the experience as “violating.”
In a legal claim filed with the High Court in London, Asato asserted that xAI, the AI division of the social media platform responsible for Grok, violated data protection laws and misused private information by allowing users to instruct Grok to generate such images, as reported by the Financial Times.
Asato further informed the newspaper that in addition to the bikini images, Grok also generated a video that depicted her in a scenario involving chloroform and preparation for a sexual assault.
This legal action follows a similar lawsuit lodged in New York by Ashley St Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, who claimed that Grok also produced explicit images of her, including one depicting her as underage.
Asato’s case against xAI may set a precedent regarding the accountability of AI tools and their developers for the content created by users. She remarked to the Financial Times that the images were produced shortly after she publicly criticized the generation of non-consensual sexualized images.
Asato stated, “My hope is that this will rebalance individuals’ rights against very large tech companies that should have implemented safeguards before causing harm to women and children.”
Ravi Naik, the attorney representing Asato, commented, “At its core, this case revolves around a fundamental principle: developers must be held accountable for the design and deployment of their tools. Our position is that an image depicting you, crafted to resemble you and intended to degrade or represent you in inappropriate circumstances, must be recognized as an image of you. xAI contests this view.”
In January, the UK government threatened action against X after Grok was utilized to generate a significant amount of sexualized content based on real women and, in certain instances, children. The media regulatory body, Ofcom, has launched an investigation into the matter.
Musk’s organization initially proposed modifying the system to restrict such image generation to paying customers on X, a move that was criticized by Keir Starmer as “horrific.” Shortly thereafter, X announced that it would completely halt Grok’s ability to alter images of real individuals to depict them in revealing attire.
Despite the controversy surrounding Grok’s output and Musk’s alignment with far-right movements in the UK, including his predictions of political violence, government officials and many MPs have continued to use X.
Additionally, Grok was involved in an incident where it erroneously implicated two Hampshire police officers in the arrest of Henry Nowak. Christi Hill, a former police constable, reported that she had to flee to a secure location due to threats stemming from false information circulated on X, which called for the officers to be tracked down and, in some cases, subjected to violence.
