Ashley St. Clair Sues xAI Over Grok Sexual Images
- Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon musk's children, filed a lawsuit Thursday against Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, alleging negligence and infliction of emotional distress.
- The lawsuit follows weeks of criticism regarding Grok's ability to generate nonconsensual deepfakes.
- Clair informed xAI that users were generating deepfakes depicting her as a child in a bikini and as an adult in sexually explicit poses.
AI Company xAI Sued over Deepfake images
Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon musk’s children, filed a lawsuit Thursday against Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, alleging negligence and infliction of emotional distress. The suit claims xAI failed to prevent users of its AI tool, Grok, from creating sexually explicit deepfake photos of her, even after she reported the issue.
The lawsuit follows weeks of criticism regarding Grok’s ability to generate nonconsensual deepfakes. Users have been able to remove clothing from people in uploaded photos, often replacing it with bikinis or underwear. The case began in New York state court but was moved to the federal Southern District of New York at the request of xAI.
According to the lawsuit, St. Clair informed xAI that users were generating deepfakes depicting her as a child in a bikini and as an adult in sexually explicit poses. She asked xAI to stop Grok from creating these images. Despite assurances from Grok that her “images will not be used or altered without explicit consent,” the suit alleges xAI continued to allow the creation of explicit images and responded by demonetizing her X account.
The case highlights growing concerns about the potential for misuse of AI technology to create harmful and nonconsensual content. NBC News previously reported on the issues with Grok’s image generation capabilities.