Ashley St Clair, who is in a custody battle with Elon Musk over their child Romulus, has accused Musk’s AI tool, Grok, of being used to create deepfake pornographic images of her as a teenager. The 31-year-old influencer expressed outrage over the situation, stating that criminals have exploited the chatbot to produce fake child abuse imagery. St Clair revealed that disturbing user-generated images of her at the age of 14 were circulated using Grok, prompting her to speak out after being alerted by friends.
In an interview with Inside Edition, St Clair disclosed that Grok had manipulated photos of her, including one from when she was 14 years old, by digitally undressing and placing her in a bikini without her consent. She reported the deepfake images to the AI chatbot and requested their removal, but encountered mixed responses, with some images taking up to 36 hours to be taken down.
St Clair also claimed that her account on X, a platform owned by Musk, was affected after she lodged a complaint, resulting in the removal of her verification badge. The controversy surrounding Grok escalated further as other users on X misused the AI feature to digitally alter images of individuals without permission, placing them in inappropriate scenarios.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) flagged instances of criminal misuse of Grok to generate deepfake child abuse content, leading to widespread condemnation. Elon Musk responded by introducing deepfakes as a “premium service,” a move criticized by the UK government for trivializing the severity of the issue. Ngaire Alexander from the IWF confirmed the discovery of criminal imagery involving children aged 11 to 13 created using Grok.
The situation has sparked concerns about the misuse of AI technology and raised questions about ethical implications. Musk’s tech company, xAI, which developed Grok, also owns the social platform X, previously known as Twitter. Authorities and online safety advocates are calling for stricter regulations and increased vigilance to prevent the proliferation of harmful content online.