The way the AI chatbot Grok was designed and trained enabled it to generate harmful sexualised content, even adding explicit material when users had not asked it to do so, according to court documents filed in Labour MP Jess Asato's legal battle against xAI.
The Particulars of the Claim show that Grok was instructed to operate with "no restrictions on adult sexual content or offensive content", to "assume good intent", and to offer "no restrictions on fictional adult sexual content with dark or violent themes".
The particulars of claim are available here.
Asato, the Labour MP for Lowestoft, is suing xAI, the creator of Grok, after the chatbot was used to create fake sexualised images of her, including images of her in a bikini and a video showing her as the victim of a sexual assault.
Her claim alleges xAI breached data protection law and misused her private information by allowing Grok to process her image. No case has applied data protection and privacy law in this way to an AI developer before, targeting not just how data is used, but how an AI developer designs and deploys the model itself.
The claim seeks a ‘compliance order’ against xAI to bring their systems into compliance with the law.
Jess Asato, the Labour MP for Lowestoft, said:
"No woman or child should have to live with the fear that their face or body can be taken, sexualised and shared around the world by an AI system without their consent.
"For too long, this company has hidden behind the excuse that it's the users who are responsible, when in fact the tool’s design recklessly allows sexualisation, even without being asked. What happened to me wasn’t an accident, Musk made a choice to profit from harm and trained Grok to abuse.
“xAI must be held accountable for the harm they have caused and are causing, so that other women and children don't have to go through what I did."
Ravi Naik, Legal Director at AWO, the law firm representing Ms Asato, said:
“xAI built a tool that generated non-consensual sexual images of real women at scale, and it took us as lawyers to get those images taken down. The particulars of claim lay bare why XAI are and should be held responsible and the harm they caused. The remedy we seek for our client is a court order requiring the systems be brought into compliance if xAI refuses to do so.
“The case shows that Grok did not malfunction. Grok's training allowed it to generate harmful sexualised content. Grok behaved according to the choices its designers made. We will prove these choice mean legal liability.
“Deepfake abuse isn't a rogue user exploiting a loophole - it's the predictable output of design choices xAI made and could have made differently. Jess Asato had the courage to put her name to a claim when thousands of women affected by the same issue can't.
“This case is a landmark. No longer can tech companies hide behind shields that they are not responsible for what their users do, when the cause of the harm is their system.”
ENDS
Editor’s notes:
- Authorities across the world took action against Elon Musk and X, with France launching criminal proceedings and Indonesia temporarily blocking Grok. Regulatory investigations have been launched in several jurisdictions including the UK, EU, Canada, Australia, and the US state of California. Class action lawsuits filed against Musk on behalf of numerous Grok victims are underway in US courts.
- Amid the controversy xAI, Grok’s parent company, announced that users would no longer be able to nudify images of real people to show them in revealing clothing.
- The claim was filed with the King's Bench Division of the Royal Courts of Justice, London. The claim is being brought under the Data Protection Act and for tortious misuse of private information. The claim seeks compensation and orders to bring the systems operated by the Defendant into compliance with the law.
- There is dedicated police support for suspected intimate image abuse.
- The lawyers for Ms Asato, AWO, are acting on a conditional fee agreement for this claim. Ms Asato also has additional support from Reset Tech.
- The solicitor for Ms Asato is Ravi Naik, Legal Director of AWO. The legal team for the case comprises world leading expertise in this area, including:
