PM backs female MP for suing xAI over bikini photo

Sir Keir Starmer has said a Labour MP was "absolutely right" to take legal action against Elon Musk's xAI over "disgusting" images created of her by chatbot Grok.

Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft in Suffolk, previously said she felt violated after claiming artificial intelligence was used to produce a fake picture of her in a bikini.

She said a legal case was filed at the High Court on Wednesday. The MP is seeking damages but also wants to set a precedent for companies to be liable for the design of AI systems.

xAI has been contacted for comment.

It comes after a backlash earlier this year over how Grok was being used to create false sexualised images.

Asato was targeted in January after speaking up, she said, and spoke in the Commons at the time about how Grok had been used to create fake images of her.

Amid the backlash, xAI 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.

Prime Minister Sir Keir said: "I'm really pleased that we took Grok on a few months ago, because that's the fight we should be in.

"Taking on some of these platform providers, some of these disgusting images… we won that.

"But Jess is right, she's a parliamentarian, and I'm 100% behind the action that she has taken."

Asato said her claim was about seeking redress for "the harms that were created while Grok was creating harms".

She revealed she had received "many images once again of me in a bikini" since news of her legal action went public.

"There are no social rules about how people's images are used any more," she told BBC Breakfast.

"We need to be able to use the law to regain some sense of control."

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Thursday, Asato said she was taking the legal action to "hold tech companies like Grok to account".

"I was by no means the worst victim affected but it made me feel dehumanised. It made me feel demeaned. My consent had not been gained and I had been stripped of my clothes without my consent," she added.

"I know, having spoken to many victims, they say they felt degraded, that this was some form of almost digital sexual assault."

She has called on others who have had their image manipulated by Grok in an "abusive or demeaning way" to come forward.

"We want to show that tech companies cannot act without impunity, they need to build safeguards into their products so that people's images cannot by used or manipulated by AI, to sexualise them without their consent."

"If you think about any other products, like a car, for example, that might have been manufactured with a fault, it doesn't matter if, you know, the cars get recalled and the faults are fixed and no more harm is done," said Asato.

"It matters that the car was produced with the fault in the first place, and that's the problem with Grok, is that it was created without the safeguards and without the guardrails to prevent this from happening in the first place.

"I guess that's the centre of my case, is to say that it doesn't matter how quickly things were then repaired. Once the damage is done, the damage is done."

The claim filed at the High Court is being brought under the Data Protection Act and for tortious misuse of private information.

Ravi Naik of law firm AWO, which is representing Asato, said: "Where there is a wrong, the law must provide a remedy, and that is as true of artificial intelligence as of anything else.

"No-one should be subjected to abuse like this, and no-one should have to instruct a lawyer to get images like these taken down.

"This content existed because of design choices made by engineers at xAI.

"This is one of the first claims to test liability for the design of an AI system, and we aim to make it clear that safety cannot be an afterthought."

Previously, social media site X, also owned by Musk, said action would be taken against illegal content on its platform.

Musk also said: "Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content."

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