MP sues xAI over deepfake bikini picture

Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft in Suffolk, is suing xAI, the maker of artificial intelligence chatbot Grok, over claims that it was used to create non-consensual fake images of her in swimwear.

Asato filed the legal case at the High Court under the Data Protection Act and tortious misuse of private information. She is seeking damages, but also wants to set a precedent for artificial intelligence companies to be accountable for the design and use of their system.

The MP had spoken previously about how Grok had been used to create fake images of her. After speaking about the this in the House of Commons in January, she was targeted with the latest batch of images.

Following the backlash earlier in the year, xAI, which is owned by the billionaire Elon Musk, said that Grok would no longer be able to be used to generate sexualised images of real people. Recent amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill have also made it illegal to create or request a non-consensual deepfake image.

The law firm representing Asato said: “Where there is a wrong, the law must provide a remedy, and that is as true of artificial intelligence as of anything else. No-one should be subjected to abuse like this, and no-one should have to instruct a lawyer to get images like these taken down. This content existed because of design choices made by engineers at xAI.”

Asato said: “If you think about any other products, like a car, for example, that might have been manufactured with a fault, it doesn't matter if, you know, the cars get recalled and the faults are fixed and no more harm is done”.

She added: “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.”