The mother of one of Elon Musk’s children has filed a lawsuit against his AI company, saying its Grok chatbot let users create sexually exploitative deepfake images of her, causing her humiliation and emotional suffering.
Ashley St Clair, 27, who calls herself a writer and political strategist, filed the lawsuit on Thursday in New York City against xAI. She says the fake images included a photo of her at age 14 – originally fully dressed – that was changed to show her in a bikini. She also says the deepfakes include images of her as an adult in sexual positions and in a bikini with swastikas, according to an Associated Press (AP) report.
On Wednesday, after global criticism over sexualised images of women and children, X (formerly Twitter) announced that Grok would no longer be able to edit photos to make real people appear in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal.
St Clair says X ignored her complaints
St Clair says she reported the deepfakes to X when they first appeared last year and asked the platform to remove them. She says X initially told her the images did not break its rules. Later, the platform promised not to allow her images to be used or changed without her permission, she says, as per the AP report.
According to St Clair, the platform then retaliated against her by removing her premium subscription and verification checkmark on X, stopping her from earning money from her account – which has 1 million followers – and still allowing degrading fake images of her to spread.
“I have suffered and continue to suffer serious pain and mental distress as a result of xAI’s role in creating and distributing these digitally altered images of me,” she said in a document included with the lawsuit. “I am humiliated and feel like this nightmare will never stop so long as Grok continues to generate these images of me,” AP quoted her as saying.
Lawsuit filed in New York
St Clair is the mother of Musk’s 16-month-old son, Romulus. She lives in New York City, where she filed the lawsuit in state Supreme Court. She is asking for an unspecified amount of money for emotional distress and other claims, along with court orders to immediately stop xAI from allowing any more deepfakes of her, AP reported.
Later on Thursday, lawyers for xAI moved the case to federal court in Manhattan, asking a judge there to take it up. On the same day, xAI also filed a countersuit against St Clair in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, saying she broke the terms of her xAI user agreement, which requires lawsuits against the company to be filed in federal court in Texas. xAI is seeking an unspecified amount of money from her, it added.