Labour MP sues Elon Musk’s AI company over fake sexualised images

Labour MP Jess Asato has filed a High Court claim against Elon Musk's AI company xAI, alleging its Grok chatbot was used to create fake sexualised images of her without consent [1]. The lawsuit, submitted on Wednesday, accuses the company of breaching data protection law and misusing private information through the tool's design [1][2]. Asato, who represents Lowestoft, said she was targeted after publicly condemning Grok for generating non-consensual sexualised content depicting thousands of women and children [2][4]. Users subsequently created and shared manipulated images showing her in a bikini, pregnant in a kitchen, and in a video depicting her being chloroformed and prepared for sexual assault [1][4]. "Nobody would be able to walk up to me in the street and strip me and put me in a bikini, and I don't see why anybody should be able to do that to me online," Asato said [3]. The legal action follows a similar lawsuit filed in New York by Ashley St Clair, the mother of one of Musk's children, who alleged explicit images of her were also generated by Grok [1]. Asato's solicitor, Ravi Naik of law firm AWO, stated: "At its heart this case is about a single principle: that developers must answer for the way they design and deploy their tools" [1]. Naik added that the content "existed because of design choices made by engineers at xAI. It is built deliberately" [3]. The case is being brought under the Data Protection Act and for tortious misuse of private information [2][3]. Asato told the Financial Times she hopes the claim will "rebalance individuals' rights against very large tech companies that should have put safeguards in place before they harmed women and children" [1]. She described the experience as feeling like someone had "digitally stripped me without my consent" [3]. The controversy erupted earlier this year when Grok, integrated into Musk's X platform, was found to allow users to alter images of real people to show them in revealing clothing or sexually suggestive contexts by responding to a photo with a prompt [5]. A Reuters review found 102 requests to Grok to generate bikini images of women in just 10 minutes [4]. The UK government threatened action in January, and media regulator Ofcom launched an inquiry [1]. xAI initially said it would restrict the feature to paying customers before announcing it had entirely stopped Grok from editing pictures of real people to show them in revealing clothes [1]. Musk stated: "Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content" [2][4]. It has since become illegal in the UK to create or request a non-consensual deepfake image of an adult [3][4]. Asato said her claim seeks redress for "the harms that were created while Grok was creating harms" [2]. She argued: "It matters that the car was produced with the fault in the first place, and that's the problem with Grok, is that it was created without the safeguards and without the guardrails to prevent this from happening in the first place" [3].