Just a warning before this episode starts, there will be
some adult type content, some mature type content in this
episode. So don't play it out loud.
For what that's worth. That's about XAI Ashley St.
Clair sexualized images of her swastikas Nazi.
It's it's a lot going on. So that's just your warning and
let's get into it though, because it's interesting to see
where AI is headed as far as image manipulation goes.
So Ashley St. Clair has sued XAI alleging Grok
Image Tool produced sexualized images of her.
Now this case is on Grok's behavior on X and whether XAI
can be held responsible for what its product outputs.
Now, the filing says the AI produced images of Saint Clair
in a string bikini covered with swastikas.
The event depicted her as a child in a bikini.
And is XAI legally responsible for what users make Grok
generate? There's also a number you should
hear. A review said Grok turned out
roughly one non consensual image per minute.
And today we're going to go through what Saint Clair filed,
how X and XAI responded, which governments moved against Grok,
and what could happen next for X and XAI and Grok.
And then we're going to talk about where the pressure points
are still for the platform and for the law.
And we'll go right into that right after this very short
break. Now, Ashley St.
Clair in this lawsuit targets XAI over images Grok generated
of her. She's the mother of one of Elon
Musk's children, and she says the product enabled harassment
that spilled across all of X. The filing tries to make the
maker of the EI directly liable for what the users prompted it.
To do this, the lawsuit describes explicit images,
including one that put her in a string bikini stamped with
swastikas and another that portrayed her as a child in a
bikini. Now that changes the stakes
because the images are both sexualized and, in her account,
weaponized with hateful symbols. The filing also notes the Saint
Clair's Jewish, which heightens the harm described.
Now think of the feed on X and this photo keeps surfacing as
you scrolled through hundreds of these photos were made.
There were different iterations from different people.
They took the original image and tweaked it and also use original
images of her to make these images.
Now her lawyer argues the product itself isn't reasonably
safe and says Grok enabled the abuse by creating and
distributing non consensual images that were then published
on X. That raises a core claim.
In product liability terms, the tool as designed allowed
foreseeable harm. Now if a court up sepsis
framing, you get a direct path to damages for injuries tied to
how the model behaves for Ashley Sinclair.
Now let's just talk about deepfakes here for a second
because we have to understand this term.
It means a synthetic image or video generated by AI that
convincingly looks real. The simple definition matters
because the harm that Sinclair alleges is tied to images that
appear real to just normal people to casual viewers
flipping through X. The filing says Sinclair asked
for removal of the images and filed reports.
She says she then received an e-mail stating there was no
violation in that much of the content stayed public on Grok's
account for over a week. That puts pressure on X's safety
systems because the claim isn't just about that the comment or
that the content just appeared, but that it remained up and they
did nothing about it. The lawsuit also says X's
reporting structure is defective and calls Grok unreasonably
dangerous as designed. That's adds a design and process
claim to the product liability theory.
And if this is all true, that argument makes future incidents
more likely, not less likely, which increases exposure.
And we're going to talk about some definition about guardrails
here. These are built in rules that
try to stop an AI from producing prohibited content.
X, through a statement shared on the platform, said that it
implemented a technical measure to stop the Grok account from
editing images of real people in revealing clothing, like
bikinis. Company also said the
restriction applies to everyone, including paid subscribers.
That limits some obvious prompts, but it doesn't answer
broader questions about how new workarounds get blocked.
So what do we know right now about this?
I did an experiment last night because I was researching a
story and I was just wondering what would happen if I typed
into X, typed into Grok, and I said make an image of Donald
Trump in a bikini. Sure enough, 3 seconds later,
Donald Trump, the President of the United States, was in a very
revealing bikini. And I thought that's horrible.
That is disgusting. Actually, I didn't want to see
that. And then I thought, well, maybe
this guardrails up because Elon Musk doesn't want people doing
that to him. So I did it for, of course,
research sake. I typed the same thing into
Grok. I said make, you know, make a
image of Elon Musk in a bikini. Sure enough, a few seconds
later, there was an image of Elon Musk in a bikini and his
body had morphed and he's filled out the bikini.
Same thing with Donald Trump. And it was disgusting.
I just want to see if these guardrails guardrails were
actually up and they are not. These revealing images are still
allowed on X. So Ashley St.
Clair has a point. There are no guardrails even
now. And this is after X has actually
released a statement saying that this is not possible anymore.
So XS safety team instead of removes child abuse material and
non consensual nudity and reports offenders to law
enforcement when necessary. It opens a compliance lane for
the platform and if the rules are clear and enforced, the
company can point to an enforcement regime.
So the lawsuit, however, challenges both the speed and
effectiveness of these actions. In this case, it seems like
there are not many guardrails on X right now, but if there are
and they want to enforce them, they have the ability to do so.
So they see Sam that we have to talk about C Sam too, because
some people aren't familiar with this.
It's an acronym for Child Sexual Abuse Material, which is illegal
content involving minors. Platforms that encounter CSM
must remove it and report it to authorities, which adds
substantial legal risk if they fail to do so.
Now, does that count with somebody making a prompt?
That's what regulators are going to work on.
Grok has reportedly blocked in Malaysia and Indonesia, and
authorities in the UK and in California, where the company is
based, are investigating the company that changes the
operational map. Because a blocked market in
active pros can force product changes, can slow down releases
or add more legal obligations to the company, the venue is no
longer just one U.S. court. The content analysis firms
review estimated that Grok was generating roughly one non
consensual image per minute during a recent spike.
That is it at scale, which is exactly what worries regulators,
plaintiffs and advertisers. If that number holds, it makes
the harm systemic rather than anecdotal.
It's not just one person, it's the whole platform.
It's just scummy people all over the platform.
You have a lawsuit, ongoing investigations, and now you have
a volume problem. You have millions of these
images out there all over the platform.
How does Elon Musk and his team battle this?
Elon Musk posted that he was not aware of naked underage images
generated by Grok and said the system only produces images when
users ask it to. He added the Grok refuses
illegal requests and that adversarial prompt hacking can
trigger unexpected behavior. That engineers.
Then we'll patch that defense is not that good to be honest with
you. You should have these guardrails
up way before anybody does anything horrible like this.
Any Elon Musk is saying that Grok as a tool obeys laws but
sometimes encounters some edge cases and therefore they can't
really do anything about it, right.
The filing says that Sinclair sought both compensary and
punitive damages. Compensatory damages repay
losses like emotional distress or lost income, or punitive
damages are meant to punish and deter.
That opens a big financial risk if a court decides the conduct
warrants punishment beyond compensation.
Punitive damages are punishment money, not reimbursement money.
Now, the lawsuit also alleges some X actions that go beyond
removal decisions and says her account was demonetized and that
more images of her were generated after she objected.
Now, if that's accurate, the strength is the claim that the
system retaliated and that the company hadn't noticed an
ongoing system of harm. So these claims cover design
moderation and alleged retaliation.
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Now let's go back into this filing.
It also asserts that Crock and Xai had explicit knowledge that
she did not consent because she told the company to remove the
images. This is a notice element now,
which in many cases is a threshold for liability if
harmful content stays up. If the company knew and failed
to act quickly, the plaintiffs argument gets stronger.
So Ashley St. Clair's argument gets much
stronger because she asked them to remove it and they did
nothing. So there's other contacts too.
Her family, Musk and Saint Clair have a son born in 2024 and are
estranged. And Musk has signaled he plans
to seek custody now. So that doesn't determine
liability, but it adds public attention and can shape how both
sides talk about the case, including the courts.
Meanwhile, XS public statements keep returning to rules and
enforcement. The company says it removes high
priority violations and zeroes out non consensual sexual
content. And it provides points to
reporting to law enforcement for C Sam dispositions X as
proactive. But the lawsuit argues the
experience on the ground was slower and less effective.
So where does this go next? Though Musk had not publicly
responded to the lawsuit as of today, which suggests an
initial, you know, his replies may appear on the platform
rather than informal court filings, which usually speaks
out publicly before the court. But maybe not this time.
But he has said that X is an XAI and Grok and X have all been
working together to kind of battle this.
But also it's up to the users to generate the content, so they
can't really police it. I guess that's what happens when
you destroy the safety team when you take over Twitter.
The investigation still continues in the UK and
California. And that suggests this issue
will evolve through multiple venues, not just one courtroom,
and overseas as well. So this is a filing that accuses
an AI product of generating sexualized, hateful and in one
case, childlike images of a real person, and it connects those
images to moderation and design choices on a major platform.
The company says it has safety measures, it removed violations,
and it avoids illegal outputs. While the plaintiff says those
steps did not work when it mattered, the next phase will
test whether courts treat AI image engines like ordinary
software or like products with a duty to prevent specific harms
for everybody.