LONDON — Jess Asato, the Labour MP for Lowestoft, filed a legal claim against xAI in the High Court in London. Asato alleges that xAI breached data protection laws and misused private information by allowing users to generate fake sexualized images of her using the Grok AI tool.
Grok generated images of Jess Asato wearing a bikini without her consent. Grok also produced a video showing Jess Asato being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault. Asato is seeking damages, a formal acknowledgment that the actions were illegal, and an injunction to stop further illegality by xAI.
The images and video of Asato were created after she publicly condemned the creation of non-consensual sexualized images using AI. "My hope is that the lawsuit will rebalance individuals' rights against very large tech companies that should have put safeguards in place before harming women and children," Asato said.
"An image that looks like a person and is intended to degrade them must be treated as an image of that person," Ravi Naik said. Naik, legal director of AWO, is representing Asato in the case. "This case is about the principle that developers must be held accountable for how they design and deploy their tools. This case could establish that AI safety cannot be an afterthought for developers," Naik said.
xAI is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which also owns the social media platform X. In January, the UK government threatened action against X after Grok was used to produce large quantities of sexualized imagery of real women and children. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the proposal to allow paying users to generate sexualized imagery was "horrific."
Days after the initial proposal, X said it had stopped Grok from editing pictures of real people to show them in revealing clothing. Ofcom launched an inquiry into the use of Grok to generate sexualized images. In mid-January, xAI restricted the tool's image editing capabilities in jurisdictions where generating images of people in revealing clothing is illegal.
The City of Baltimore sued xAI in March, claiming that Grok's ability to create fake sexualized images violated consumer protection laws. Ashley St Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk's children, filed a lawsuit in New York state alleging that Grok generated explicit images of her, including one where she appeared underage. All four plaintiffs in a separate U.S. class-action lawsuit said they would consider dropping out if their names had to be revealed. xAI did not respond to requests for comment from multiple news outlets.