Baltimore city with a population of 568,000 has taken legal action against Elon Musk’s AI company xAI, accapplying it of allowing harmful content through its Grok chatbot. According to a Reuters report, the city has filed a lawsuit on Tuesday (March 24), claiming that Grok can generate non-consensual sexually explicit images, including those involving children. Officials stated Baltimore is the largest city so far to sue xAI over such “deepfake” content linked to the chatbot.In its complaint filed in a local court, Baltimore stated xAI misled utilizers by promoting Grok as a safe, general-purpose AI tool. The city alleged that instead, the chatbot has been widely utilized to create and spread objectionable content on Musk’s social media platform X.According to the lawsuit, millions of such images were generated in a short period earlier this year, including thousands involving minors. The city stated this raises serious concerns around safety, privacy and misutilize of AI technology.Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott stated the issue goes beyond technology. He added that such tools could enable the exploitation of children and must be addressed urgently. “We’re talking about tech companies enabling the sexual exploitation of children. It’s a threat to privacy, dignity and public safety, and those responsible must be held accountable,” Scott stated as quoted in the Reuters report.
Elon Musk’s Grok faces scrutiny
The case comes as xAI faces scrutiny in several countries including America, Europe, Asia and in Australia over how Grok handles content. It then stated that it has restricted image editing in Grok, and blocked utilizers from generating images of people in revealing clothing in “jurisdictions where it’s illegal.”xAI CEO Elon Musk then stated he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.”
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