Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of X owner Elon Musk’s children, is suing his company for enabling its AI to virtually strip her down into a bikini without her consent.
St. Clair is one of the many people over the past couple weeks who have found themselves undressed without permission by X’s AI chatbot, Grok. The chatbot has been gingerly complying with users’ requests to remove clothing from many women and some apparent minors, or put them in sexualized poses or scenarios. The feature has caused an uproar from policymakers around the world who have launched investigations and vowed that new and existing laws should prevent this kind of behavior. But so far, The Verge has found, the bot continues to comply with requests.
St. Clair filed suit against xAI in New York state, requesting a restraining order to prevent xAI from making further deepfakes of her, and the case was quickly moved to federal court on Thursday. She’s alleging that the company has created a public nuisance and that the product is “unreasonably dangerous as designed,” as The Wall Street Journal earlier reported. The argument is similar to those used in other social media cases advancing this year, focusing on product liability in an effort to circumvent the strong legal shield for hosting content under Section 230.
St. Clair is being represented by Carrie Goldberg, who has been at the forefront of these kinds of arguments against tech companies. The complaint argues that Section 230 shouldn’t shield xAI because “Material generated and published by Grok is xAI’s own creation.”
xAI filed its own suit against St. Clair on Thursday in the Northern District of Texas, arguing she had breached her contract with the company by bringing her dispute to a different court, when the company’s terms of service require her to exclusively file claims in the Texas court.
In response to a request for comment sent to xAI’s media email, The Verge received what appeared to be an auto response: “Legacy Media Lies.”
