A group of teens in Tennessee are suing xAI for allowing Grok to undress them in their Instagram photos. File Phot by Fazry Ismail/EPA
A group of Tennessee teens and one adult sued Elon Musk’s xAI on Monday for allowing it to undress them creating child pornography.
The teens allege a person, who was arrested in December, created child sexual abuse material by using their Instagram images and xAI’s chatbot Grok.
Musk and Grok have come under fire in recent months in other countries because the artificial intelligence tool has allowed people to make deepfake images of women and girls without their consent. After accusing the governments of censorship, Musk first stopped allowing images to be generated in Grok except to paid subscribers. On Jan. 15, xAI stopped allowing Grok to undress people in images, the company said.
Last week, Musk said in a post on X that, “if it’s allowed in an R-rated movie, it’s allowed” by Grok.
Brazil, Britain, Spain and other countries were investigating the company over these allegations.
The three plaintiffs from Tennessee, which include two minors, allege that the images of them without clothes were spread across Discord and Telegram. Some were traded for other child sexual abuse material in online chatrooms, the complaint said.
A “model that can create sexualized images of adults cannot be prevented from creating CSAM of minors,” the complaint said. “These young people — these children — are facing a lifetime of having these … sexualized images of what appears to be a child’s body out there on the internet,” said lawyer Vanessa Baehr-Jones, who is representing the plaintiffs. “It wouldn’t have been possible but for this tool that xAI released knowing full well that this material could be generated.”
The mother of a girl with the pseudonym Jane Doe 2, said in a statement: “Watching my daughter have a panic attack after realizing that these images were created and distributed without any hope of recalling them was heartbreaking. Her excitement about all that she would experience over her senior year — her spring formal, her graduation, and her senior trip — now comes with the fear anything she shares will be used and manipulated again. What should be the most exciting time in her life is now completely tainted. How many victims will it take for the creators of this AI technology to understand that safeguards are necessary?”
Annika K. Martin, lead counsel in the suit, said in an interview that she’d like to ask the following questions of Musk:
“As a parent can you imagine your child — your child’s face — on images of … depraved actions put into video of grossly sexual behavior?” she asked. “Your child’s voice on video screaming. Can you imagine that as a parent? Can you imagine that for your child and feel OK with what you’ve done?”
