In a major development, Elon Musk’s AI company xAI is facing a lawsuit after a child sexual abuse survivor accused its Grok chatbot of using old photos of her to create new abusive material, according to report by AFP. The report says the case was filed in a California federal court by an anonymous woman identified as Jane Doe 1.
She alleged that xAI designed Grok to turn real photos of identifiable people into sexual content and publish the AI-generated images on X. The survivor was first identified by the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the early 2000s. According to the lawsuit, images of her abuse have remained online for nearly two decades.
The complaint claims Grok used that material to generate new images of the survivor. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection identified the AI-generated material, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also points to a much wider controversy involving Grok’s image-generation feature.
According to the report, the issue began after Musk asked Grok to create an image of himself wearing a bikini. Citing research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the lawsuit claims Grok generated more than 3 million sexualised images in 11 days, including more than 23,000 images that appeared to show children.
AFP reported that xAI initially responded by limiting the image-generation feature to paying subscribers instead of completely disabling it.
The latest lawsuit is at least the second legal case against xAI over alleged abusive material generated by Grok. A separate lawsuit filed by three Tennessee teenagers has also been expanded to include additional plaintiffs and Stability AI.
The plaintiff is seeking damages under Masha’s Law, a US law that allows victims of federal child pornography offences to seek at least $150,000 per violation. She has also asked the court to order the destruction of any illegal material held by xAI and has demanded a jury trial.
