MP sues Elon Musk’s xAI in UK test case over fake sexual images

A British Labour MP has sued Elon Musk’s xAI in what is believed to be the first UK case testing whether an AI company can be held liable for images generated by its chatbot.

Jess Asato alleges that users of xAI’s Grok created fake sexualised images of her without her consent in January, including pictures depicting her in a bikini and a video “showing her being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault”.

X users then further discussed the abusive material online and shared additional AI-manipulated imagery, according to Asato. 

Asato told the FT that she had been targeted after speaking out publicly against the creation of non-consensual imagery. “My hope is that this will rebalance individuals’ rights against very large tech companies that should have put safeguards in place before they harmed women and children,” she said, calling for better “safety by design”.

The claim, filed on Wednesday in the High Court in London, argues that xAI violated laws around data protection and the misuse of private information by allowing the images to be generated. 

The case could establish whether an AI company can be held liable for the content generated using its own chatbot technology, which Asato’s lawyers argue is distinct from user-generated content. 

“At its heart this case is about a single principle: that developers must answer for the way they design and deploy their tools,” said Ravi Naik, legal director of AWO, who is representing Asato.

“Our case is that . . . an image that is of you, is designed to look like you and [whose] very purpose is to degrade you or have you represented in different conditions, must be an image of you,” said Naik. “xAI say otherwise.”

Asato is seeking monetary damages and an order to bring AI systems into compliance with laws protecting users.  

The lawsuit is the latest legal action targeting Musk’s AI efforts, coming as his rocket company SpaceX, which bought xAI in February, prepares for the largest public offering in history later this month. 

In January, Ashley St Clair, the influencer and mother of one of Musk’s children, filed a lawsuit against xAI in New York on similar grounds.

Shortly after, xAI filed a lawsuit against St Clair in Texas, claiming she had breached the company’s terms of service by bringing her lawsuit against the company in a New York court instead of in Texas. 

Musk has insisted on having fewer safety and content moderation guardrails around his AI products than competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google in line with his “free speech” ideals, and as he has pushed xAI to roll out products swiftly to keep pace in the AI race. 

However, the freewheeling approach has at times proven contentious. Musk was last year forced to address a backlash after Grok praised Adolf Hitler, referred to itself as “MechaHitler” and spouted conspiracy theories. 

In January, xAI and Musk came under fire once more when fake sexualised images of women, and in some cases, children, began to proliferate on the platform after Musk shared an AI-altered post of himself in a bikini. 

The uproar swiftly prompted threats of fines and bans in the EU and France as well as investigations by the California attorney-general and the UK’s Ofcom regulator, among others. Grok was also temporarily banned in Indonesia and Malaysia.

In the UK, the government accelerated the enforcement of new powers making it a criminal offence to create non-consensual intimate images, including with AI, in response.

xAI later tightened its guardrails, although Musk insisted that he was “not aware of any naked underage images”.

xAI did not respond to a request for comment.