xAI Asks Court to Strip Alleged Grok Deepfake Nudes Victims of Anonymity
Key takeaways
- The four fear further online harassment and doxing if they are forced to use their real names in the lawsuit against xAI, the documents allege.
- In January, use of the Musk-owned Grok chatbot caused global outrage as scores of men used the generative AI system to create fake images of women “undressed” and in bikinis.
- The class-action lawsuit against xAI was initially filed in January with one pseudonymous lead claimant.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photo Illustration of a women as a silhouette with a judge sitting inside the cutout Photo-Illustration: Jobanny Cabrera; Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm, x AI, is requesting the public identification of four people who allegedly had deepfake sexualized images created of them using Grok—including one apparently targeted with sexualized deepfake images of them as a child, according to recently filed court documents.
On May 29, the four main claimants in a federal class-action lawsuit—currently identified as South Carolina Doe, South Carolina Roe, New Jersey Doe, and Ohio Doe—described in affidavits the emotional distress they had suffered after the alleged deepfakes were created earlier this year. The four fear further online harassment and doxing if they are forced to use their real names in the lawsuit against xAI, the documents allege.
“Having stripped them of their clothes, xAI now seeks to strip Plaintiffs of their pseudonyms in an obvious effort to intimidate Plaintiffs into dropping the litigation by compounding the same harms that they seek to remedy,” Sophia Rios, a lawyer representing the individuals for legal firm Berger Montague, wrote in a recent filing. “Asking this Court to reverse itself, xAI suggests that the abuse it has perpetuated is no big deal.” Rios tells WIRED she is unable to comment beyond what is written in the filings.