New claimants have come forward to take legal action against Elon Musk's company xAI after Labour MP Jess Asato launched a test case over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool. A handful of complainants contacted Asato's lawyer on Thursday in response to coverage of her decision to sue Musk's company for damages over fake images and an AI-created video showing her being chloroformed.
Ravi Naik, legal director of law firm AWO, said he was already acting for multiple individuals hoping to take action over degrading, non-consensual content generated by Grok. Many claimants had struggled to persuade X to remove images until they received legal support. Naik described the case as a test case on liability for AI developers, arguing that design choices in AI models should be subject to liability.
The claim argues xAI violated data protection law and breached Asato's private information by allowing the images to be generated. A bikinification trend went viral on X in January, with Grok generating about 3 million sexualised images in less than two weeks, according to researchers. Musk's company later put the technology behind a paywall and limited the chatbot's capacity to fulfil such prompts.
Asato said she wanted the legal action to demonstrate that AI companies are responsible for their design choices, noting that guardrails could have been put in place but were not. She described the experience as psychologically distressing and said Musk amplified hatred against her by sharing abusive posts. Keir Starmer said Asato was absolutely right to take legal action over the disgusting images.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle said it was important for UK politicians to be assertive in holding Musk to account, noting his active and extreme role in British politics. The legal action comes amid heightened sensitivity to Musk's involvement in UK domestic affairs.
