Fake sex images of MP are 'gross violation', court told

A Suffolk MP suffered a "gross violation of her dignity" when fake sexualised images and videos of her were created by Elon Musk's xAI chatbot Grok, High Court documents have said.

Jess Asato, the Labour MP for Lowestoft, is suing xAI for damages after non-consensual images and videos, including some showing her being sexually assaulted, were shared online.

She is seeking damages for the misuse of her private information and breaches of data protection rules, as well as a court order requiring the company to find and remove any remaining online images.

xAI is yet to file a defence to the legal action.

In court documents, published on Tuesday, Asato's lawyers claimed she was "victimised" after speaking out in January against non-consensual deepfake images of women being created by Grok.

Marie Demetriou KC, for Asato, said the MP posted on X calling on Musk to "understand that using AI to strip women without their consent is sexual assault designed to degrade and humiliate".

If you, or someone you know, has been affected by sexual abuse, organisations listed at BBC Action Line may be able to help.

Several X users then prompted Grok to create "sexualised, intimate, grossly offensive, degrading, threatening, humiliating and/or discriminatory non-consensual images" of Asato, which were shared online, the documents said.

After attempts to report some posts, X refused to remove them, stating in March they did not violate its terms of service, privacy policy or rules, it was said.

Demetriou said while two videos were later removed, six of 21 posts reported in February were still live in late July.

xAI has since said users would no longer be able to use the tool to generate sexualised images of real people.

It has since become illegal to create or request a non-consensual deepfake image of an adult in the UK.

But Demetriou said xAI has "failed and is failing" to prevent the continued creation of such images by the chatbot.

A hearing of the claim is yet to take place.

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