The lawsuit argues that, over the course of the past several weeks, Grok users have taken advantage of prompts that instruct the chatbot to “undress” the subjects of real-life photographs. In some cases, these ordinary and non-explicit photographs have been reworked to feature women and children in sexually explicit scenes.
A bipartisan coalition of 35 state attorneys general has filed a lawsuit demanding that xAI, the owner of Twitter and the Grok, take immediate action to prevent its chatbot from generating sexually explicit images of children.
In a press release, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said that Elon Musk-owned xAI recently empowered Grok to make “this content publicly available at the click of a button, fueling harassment and exploitation that is extremely harmful to the targets who are powerless to stop such postings.”
Sunday’s office noted that he, along with other attorneys general involved in the lawsuit, recently sent a letter to xAI detailing what changes the company would need to make for litigation to end.
“The anguish, embarrassment, and devastation resulting from being the subject of a nonconsensual image creation or alteration online cannot be overstated. With this letter, we are standing up for the many individuals already harmed, and those who may be targeted today, tomorrow, or in the future,” Sunday said in a statement. “We are encouraged by xAI’s willingness to meet in recent days and hear our concerns over this content, and we hope ongoing discussions result in long-lasting changes to policies and practices that put anyone and everyone at risk. As an industry pioneer and leader, we are depending on xAI, and all tech companies, to lead by example and take these necessary steps.”
The lawsuit argues that, over the course of the past several weeks, Grok users have taken advantage of prompts that instruct the chatbot to “undress” the subjects of real-life photographs. In some cases, these ordinary and non-explicit photographs have been reworked to feature women and children in sexually explicit scenes.
Grok also purportedly “generated images depicting children in minimal clothing or sexual situations which violated the terms of service of the application.”
Sunday says that xAI had actually marketed Grok’s “permissive content generation” as a major selling point over competing products, like ChatGPT. In his letter, Sunday and the other attorneys general argue that “the ability to create nonconsensual intimate images appears to be a feature, not a bug.”
xAI has recently changed some of its policies to curb the abuse of Grok’s generative capabilities, but the lawsuit seeks further assurances that any safeguards implemented are actually “effective, durable, and consistently enforced.”
“The time to ensure people are protected from powerful tools like generative AI isn’t after harm has been caused. You shouldn’t wait for a car crash to put up guardrails.” Sunday said. “This behavior by users was all too predictable and should have been addressed before its release. Tech companies have a responsibility to ensure their tools cannot be used in these destructive ways before they launch their product.”
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