Baltimore sues Elon Musk’s AI company over Grok’s fake sexual images

The city of Baltimore is suing Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company over nonconsensual sexual images generated using the company’s Grok tool, in one of the first such lawsuits brought by a local government.

The lawsuit claims that users of Musk’s social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, have been exposed to Grok-generated sexual content and risk having their own images manipulated without their permission.

“Baltimore residents have a reasonable expectation that they will not be exposed to this illegal content on X, and that X will not harass its own customers with Grok-generated deepfakes,” the complaint states. The lawsuit was brought by the national law firm Dicello Levitt on behalf of the city. The firm is working on a contingency basis, so it will not be paid unless the city wins money in the lawsuit.

Grok is a generative artificial intelligence tool developed by xAI and promoted to users through X. The complaint says the companies introduced an image generation feature in August that included a “spicy mode” that allowed users to create sexually explicit images and videos. Users could “undress” people shown in photographs, including celebrities and children, according to the complaint.

xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new lawsuit.

When fake images of people in bikinis became part of an online trend late last year, Musk shared a Grok-generated photo of himself in a bikini. “Perfect,” he wrote in a follow-up post. The use of the tool exploded after his post.

X limited the image creation tool to paid accounts in January, following outcry over the sexualized images Grok had created.

An analysis by the New York Times estimates that Grok created and shared at least 1.8 million sexualized images of women while the service was available. Another analysis by the Center for Countering Digital Hate estimated that over 3 million images were shared, including more than 20,000 of children.

In a statement, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said that the images created by Grok have lasting consequences for victims.

“We’re talking about tech companies enabling the sexual exploitation of children,” Scott said. “Our city will not stand by and allow this to continue.”

The Grok lawsuit is the latest action brought by Baltimore’s ambitious law department since the City Council passed a consumer protection law in 2023.

Baltimore sued online betting giants DraftKings and FanDuel in a lawsuit accusing the companies of targeting people with gambling problems, and accused unregulated online casino operators of using colorful, gamified imagery to disguise illegal gambling operations.

The city has also sued lending apps that offer “earned wage access” services, which provide an advance on a person’s paycheck that must be paid back with interest.

Baltimore is not the first to raise legal concerns about Grok’s creation of sexualized images. Thirty-five state attorneys general wrote a letter imploring xAI to take steps to protect the public, particularly “the women and girls who are the overwhelming target” of the images. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown signed on to the letter.

California’s attorney general also sent xAI a cease and desist letter in January, and the company has faced lawsuits over Grok’s creation of nonconsensual sexual images, including one from teenagers who said the AI tool was used to create child sexual abuse material using their images.