New York
Elon Musk’s xAI sued a user on Tuesday, alleging he used the Grok chatbot to create child sexual abuse materials. It’s one of many first lawsuits filed by a tech firm towards customers who allegedly create express content material with AI.
Musk’s firm alleged within the lawsuit {that a} user named Terry Wayne Harwood violated its phrases of service “to convert non-sexual photographs into sexually explicit images without the photograph subjects’ knowledge or consent.” Harwood, alongside with three different males, was arrested earlier this 12 months in South Carolina on a number of counts of alleged sexual exploitation of a minor.
NCS has reached out to the legal professional representing Harwood in his prison case for remark.
The lawsuit, filed within the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges Harwood created a number of xAI accounts and entered “misleading prompts” to create express deepfakes of each minors and adults.
The lawsuit additional alleges that Harwood designed prompts it characterised as “misleading” in an effort to “circumvent” what it described as “built-in safeguards” to stop towards the creation of express materials depicting minors.
“Defendant breached the xAI Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy by leveraging Grok to generate non-consensual sexually explicit images and CSAM,” or child sexual abuse materials, the go well with provides.
Earlier this 12 months, Grok got here underneath hearth for a instrument that allowed “digital undressing,” together with AI-generated photographs of kids. After users began noticing a surge in non-consensual, sexualized deepfakes late final 12 months, Musk and xAI stated they might take motion towards such unlawful use of the AI. “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” Musk write in a January 6 social media submit quoted within the go well with.
Harwood’s alleged misuse of Grok uncovered xAI “to significant legal risk and reputational damage,” the lawsuit alleged.
In the lawsuit, xAI claims that it “has suspended 52,222 accounts and made 73,604 reports to (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children) in 2026, resulting in (at least) 244 arrests.”
The lawsuit seeks a declaration that Harwood broke the location’s Terms of Service and unspecified damages.
xAI has confronted scrutiny over its chatbot earlier than. Last 12 months, the corporate posted a prolonged apology for a sequence of violent and antisemitic posts from Grok, placing the blame on a system update.