(AP) – The mother of one of That of Elon Musk children is suing her AI company, claiming that its Grok chatbot allowed users to generate false sexually exploitative images of her that caused her humiliation and emotional distress.
Ashley St. Clair, 27, who describes herself as a writer and political strategist, alleges in a lawsuit filed Thursday in New York against xAI that the images included a photo of her fully clothed at age 14 that was altered to show her in a bikini, and others showing her as an adult in sexualized positions and wearing a bikini with swastikas on it. St. Clair is Jewish. Grok is on Musk’s social media platform X.
Lawyers for xAI did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Friday. Wednesday, after global reaction on sexualized images of women and children, X announced that Grok would no longer be able to edit photos to depict real people in revealing clothing, in places where it is illegal.
Asked about the lawsuit and its allegations, xAI responded only “Legacy Media Lies” in an email to The Associated Press.
St. Clair said she reported the deepfakes to X after they surfaced last year and asked that they be removed. She said the platform initially responded that the images did not violate its policies. Then he promised not to allow images of her to be used or edited without her consent, she said.
St. Clair said the social platform then retaliated against her by removing her premium
“I have suffered and continue to suffer severe 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 attached to the lawsuit. “I am humiliated and feel like this nightmare will never end as long as Grok continues to generate these images of me.”
She also said she lives in fear of people viewing her deepfakes.
St. Clair is the mother of Musk’s 16-month-old son Romulus. She lives in New York, where she filed the suit with the state Supreme Court. She is seeking an undisclosed amount of damages for alleged emotional distress and other claims, as well as court orders immediately prohibiting xAI from authorizing more deep infringements from her.
Later Thursday, xAI’s lawyers moved the lawsuit to federal court in Manhattan, asking a judge to hear the case there. And on the same day, xAI also sued St. Clair in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, alleging that she violated the terms of her xAI user agreement that requires lawsuits against the company to be filed in federal court in Texas. He is seeking an undisclosed financial judgment against her.
X is based in Texas, where Musk has a home and his electric car maker Tesla, which is headquartered in Austin.
Carrie Goldberg, a St. Clair attorney, called the countersuit a “shocking” move she had never seen from a defendant before.
“Ms. St. Clair will vigorously defend her forum in New York,” Goldberg said in a statement. “But frankly, any jurisdiction will recognize the weight of Ms. St. Clair’s assertions: by manufacturing sexually explicit, non-consensual images of girls and women, xAI is a public nuisance and not a reasonably safe product.”
In its Wednesday announcement, X said it was implementing other safeguards on Grok, including limiting image creation and editing to paid accounts, which it said would improve accountability. It said it has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity and unwanted sexual content, and will immediately remove such content and report accounts involved in child pornography to law enforcement.
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