Suffolk MP Jess Asato Sues Elon Musk's xAI Over Grok Deepfake Bikini Image
Jess Asato, the Labour MP for Lowestoft, has launched legal proceedings against Elon Musk's xAI, the company behind the Grok chatbot. The High Court filing on Wednesday alleges the AI tool was used to generate manipulated images depicting her in a bikini, which Ms Asato described as a violation.
The claim seeks financial redress for the harm caused and aims to establish that AI companies are liable for the inherent design flaws of their systems. Ms Asato stated, "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."
This legal challenge follows a period earlier this year when Grok faced criticism over its use in creating false, sexualised images. Ms Asato was targeted in January after publicly addressing the issue, speaking in the Commons about the incident.
In response to the controversy, xAI committed to preventing users from generating sexualised images of real individuals. Concurrently, UK law has since made the creation or request of non-consensual deepfake images of adults illegal.
Ravi Naik of AWO, the law firm representing Ms Asato, commented that the claim, brought under the Data Protection Act and for tortious misuse of private information, is one of the first to examine liability for AI system design. He emphasised, "This content existed because of design choices made by engineers at xAI. We aim to make it clear that safety cannot be an afterthought."
