Ashley St. Clair, who gave beginning to one among Elon Musk’s sons in 2024, sued Musk’s xAI in a New York courtroom on Thursday, alleging that its chatbot Grok generated sexually specific deepfake photos of her at customers’ request.
Within the grievance, St. Clair, a author, influencer, and political strategist, claims X customers prompted Grok to govern photos of her, together with pictures from when she was 14, into graphic sexual content material. She alleges some photos remained on-line for greater than every week and that her premium X account was later terminated after she complained.
She can be requesting a short lived restraining order to compel xAI to instantly stop from “the intentional disclosure of nonconsensual intimate photos.”
xAI didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“Grok first promised Ms. St. Clair that it might chorus from manufacturing extra photos unclothing her,” the grievance learn. “As an alternative, Defendant retaliated towards her, demonetizing her X account and producing multitudes extra photos of her,” the swimsuit alleged.
St. Clair can be concerned in a separate swimsuit with Musk over the custody of their son, during which she sought sole custody.
xAI responded the identical day with a separate lawsuit, arguing that St. Clair agreed to its phrases of service, which requires any litigation to be heard in Texas. St. Clair is represented by legal professional Carrie Goldberg, who focuses on instances involving abuse and has represented shoppers towards Harvey Weinstein.
“xAI isn’t a fairly protected product,” Goldberg stated in an announcement to Enterprise Insider. “This hurt flowed immediately from deliberate design selections that enabled Grok for use as a software of harassment and humiliation. Corporations shouldn’t be in a position to escape duty when the merchandise they construct predictably trigger this type of hurt.”
The lawsuit adopted worldwide backlash towards the Grok chatbot for its potential to undress photos of actual folks and create sexualized photos with out their consent at customers’ request.
Indonesia and Malaysia blocked access to Grok, whereas UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer referred to as specific photos generated by Grok “disgusting” and “shameful” in a gathering with the Home of Commons.
On Wednesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta additionally introduced that his workplace is investigating the “non-consensual, sexually specific materials that xAI has produced and posted on-line” of “ladies and kids in nude and sexually specific conditions.”
X stated on the identical day in a weblog submit that customers would not be allowed to create AI pictures of actual folks in sexualized or revealing clothes on the platform, including that the restriction “applies to all customers, together with paid subscribers.”
As of Thursday morning, Enterprise Insider reporter Henry Chandonnet discovered that it’s nonetheless “surprisingly straightforward” to immediate Grok to create nude photos of him by going to the app itself as an alternative of utilizing the Grok chatbot on X.
