Grok Deepfaked This UK Politician—Now She's Taking Elon Musk's xAI To Court - WIRED

Grok Deepfaked This UK Politician—Now She’s Taking Elon Musk’s xAI To Court This interview includes references to sexual assault and child sex abuse. WIRED’s Rosie Swash speaks with UK politician Jess Asato about tackling Elon Musk’s xAI after being subject to deepfaking via Grok, xAI’s chatbot. Jess and Rosie also delve into the ‘AI kill switch’ proposal, the specifics of Jess’ court case and the harsh reality of being deepfaked on the internet in 2026. Released on 10/28/2026 Transcript I wanted to take you back to the beginning of this year, January 2026. There was widespread reporting of Grok, xAI's chatbot, being used to create sexualized images of children and women and those images being circulated on X. How aware were you at this point of the phenomenon of deepfakes being used in this way? Very aware. And actually had been working, you know, with survivors who had experienced deepfakes for quite a number of years, you know, ever since the advent of AI, you know, has been happening to women. And the developing risks of children both being, you know, put into child sexual abuse material, but also children using nudification tools on other children, thereby criminalizing themselves because these tools are so easy to access, often free. So I was already very alive to the huge harms being created by AI deepfakes of both women and children before Grok ever happened. It was a known harm, which is why many of the tools from, you know, other companies had already taken, you know, steps to stop them from being used to create this kind of content. And, you know, there are a number of tools where, you know, you type in nudify or take the clothes off this person, and the tool refused to do that. So into that environment came Grok. Was there a particularly egregious example and incident prior to Grok when you became aware of deepfakes that really stuck with you? Yeah, I think it was probably listening to the experiences of Jodie, who was deepfaked, and it was such an affront to her that somebody would do this. And then she found out it was actually a friend. Such a betrayal of trust. These things destroy not just the individual involved, but often families and everyone around them too. For people who don't know, who exactly was Jodie? This is a constituent of yours or someone who came forward to you specifically? No, no, no. She's a very well-known campaigner on this issue. That's not her real name. Before, what happened was that victims had to prove that there was no consent, and now it's up to the perpetrators to prove that there was no consent to create these images. I know it sounds obvious, but what exactly is nudification? Well, it is where you ask an AI tool to take the image or video of a real person and, you know, using generative AI to make that person either nude or engaging in pornographic acts or making a part of them nude. This is something that, because of the huge development of AI and the, you know, real photorealistic nature of it, it has become increasingly hard to see this as, you know, a fake image. It can often look incredibly, incredibly real. So what was it particularly about the Grok scandal earlier this year that made you want to raise this in the House of Commons? It was the fact that we already knew that you could stop this from happening by designing the AI tool to reject the ability to do this, that it actually says that the tool should accept asks for the creation of adult sexual content, even that which has dark or violent themes. And the fact was that this was completely avoidable, and that's why I spoke out, but also because I just spent a year and a half campaigning to get a ban on nudification apps, and here was an all-purpose AI tool becoming a nudification app. And it just felt to me as though, you know, we were making strides in the UK, and then the world's richest man and his product decided to turn the clock back. So what exactly did you stand up and say? What I did was I talked about the need for the government to accelerate their ban on nudification apps, which they did. So the Secretary of State, Liz Kendall, said that she was going to bring that ban into law through the Crime and Policing Bill, which she did. But I also said that it was very important that we went further than that because, of course, Grok itself is not a sole-purpose nudification tool. It has a general use, and therefore we needed to bring all AI chatbots under the auspices of the Online Safety Act. And we're now waiting until that legislation comes into effect. There's got to be a consultation, I understand, before it does. So technically another Grok could happen in this period, but in the future, there would be much stronger measures that we could take against tools like Grok creating nudification content. So that's a really positive outcome of your interjection in Parliament, but what else happened as a result of you standing up? Well, one of the things that happened was that I posted on social saying that, you know, Elon Musk should stop and stop Grok from being able to do this. And then, of course, I became a victim of, you know, the same trend. So, @Grok, put this woman in a bikini. And, you know, most of the images, you know, were sort of pornified, I would say. So they weren't nude images, but they were me with, you know, inflated boobs in a bikini. Then people tried to, you know, make it funny, I guess, by putting, you know, swastika on me or hammer and sickles, depending friend, or making me pregnant with quintuplets and putting me in a kitchen, because, of course, that's the only use for women, is birthing and making dinner. But the kind of really disturbing one was a video of me being surrounded by a group of men, chloroformed over my mouth, and then I fall backwards onto a chair, and then my skirts are lifted up. So no nudity, but clearly the next frame is meant to be a sexual assault. So, you know, it was really, really distressing and disturbing. That was the point at which friend said, You probably need to reach out to a lawyer, because each of these things we reported to X, and, you know, none of them contravened their terms and conditions. We just keep getting those sort of repeat emails coming back, We've looked into this and there's nothing to see here. So I did engage a lawyer who sent a letter to X to ask for these to be removed, and they were, but it was at that point that he said, Actually, I think you might actually have a case. We think that xAI have broken the law. I mean, I think it's brilliant that you did that, and I can see the through line of your legal training and how practically you tackle things. But when you were just telling me that, it really turned my stomach. I had a very physical reaction to you describing what they did, and I just wanted to sort of find out more about how it felt. I mean, I'm really impressed by how you handled it and the sort of default to action, but it must have been really awful. It was awful. You know, this is done to demean, to degrade, and to push women out of online spaces. From my perspective, I tend to use bad or difficult things that happen as a way of thinking about how do we change this for the future. My old boss was an amazing woman called Tessa Jowell, and she used to say to me, if anything went wrong, she would say, How do we change this negative energy into something positive? How do we work our way out this into a place where we actually feel that we've learned from it? And so I guess, you know, she instilled in me that sort of sense that when something bad happens, you've got a choice. You can wallow in it, you can try and forget about it, or you can use it as a catalyst for change. And so I was quite trepidatious about the idea of taking on a legal action, not least because of the person who is at the top of xAI, now SpaceX AI. He's the world's richest man. But also because I didn't want myself to necessarily be the story. Many, many women, you know, had things that were created of them through both Grok, but also other nudification tools that are much, much worse. Having said that, I knew that if there was the opportunity to say that actually they'd broken the law, there was an important point of principle on behalf of all of the women and the children whose images were manipulated and misused by Grok, who would never, ever be able to bring a legal case. And so I decided that, you know, I wanted to do this because I wanted to be able to show that no one is bigger than the law. It doesn't matter how rich you are or how powerful you are or how big a reach you have in terms of your social media presence or who your friends might be at the top of various governments. If you break the law in our country, you need to feel the force of that. And as an ex-lawyer and now as a legislator, it is important that, you know, we uphold our law where it has been broken. And so it's also about giving control back, I think, to us as individuals, but also as a society. So many of these digital changes have been done without our consent, our say, you know, and I think there's a feeling that there's a sort of runaway train that we're all on, whether we want to be or not, because we all need to use online spaces for our work, for connection. And so my view is that we should be expecting companies to respect our law or at least make new laws to bring them more into line with what society really needs. You said there that you gave it some thought. In that moment of trying to decide how to respond, what are you weighing up? Who are you talking to? Are you going back and talking to your team or your family to work out how you should respond, knowing that it may invite further speculation and further attention? My family mostly. So my husband in particular. It's one thing, you know, being a politician and arguing your case to change the law on behalf of women and children; it's another having your own legal case. And so I was worried about the impact that that might have on my family and my children. I'll be honest, because I have been, you know, at the heart of pile-ons on X before. I also know that this can bring danger to politicians. And so I worried about the fact that, you know, I am obviously engaging and making the defendant somebody who has got this very wide reach on social media. However, I don't like bullies, and I very strongly believe that it's important to fight on the field that you've got. And this was an opportunity I felt to make a difference. So I weighed that up and thought that it was worth, you know, having that kind of attention spotlight and potential danger because there is a bigger issue here that we need to get right. When you say you don't like bullies, are you talking about the, let's face it, men who used Grok in this way in the first place, or are you talking about Elon Musk? I'm talking about, yeah, the men who used this as a form of trying to push women out of the online space. And actually it was quite clear in quite a lot of the comments that, you know, they were saying, Well, if you don't like this, then get off the platform. Either that or, you know, If this is too hot for you, get out of the kitchen, which I always find quite funny because they put me in a kitchen. It's a bit like, Do you want me in the kitchen or out of it? And I think it's really interesting when you look at X in terms of its demographics in the UK. It's highly weighted towards men. So women are already, you know, voting with their feet in relation to this particular platform. And I think some of that's down to the fact that there is just so much misogyny and abuse on it. So I'm assuming, correct me if I'm wrong, that the other side of the response to going public and deciding to continue with being public on this issue and to fight it in court is that other women have come forward to you. Did you have other women coming forward talking to you about your decision to make this legal? Absolutely. And actually that has been one of the, I guess the heartening things has both been people coming forward and saying, Thank you, because this has now given me the license to actually accept that what happened to me, you know, wasn't my fault. It's not my shame. And so, in a way, what I'm hoping is that this has helped some victims to process what has happened to them and understand that this was not right. It's not right. I've also had emails from parents where they've said that this has happened to their daughter. It's been done by boys at school. I've had teachers saying that boys have made pornographic AI imagery of them. And it is actually quite rife. And it's something where we've just sort of let it happen and wash over us and accept that somehow this is now a part of the society we live in. So yes, quite a number of people have come forward. Obviously, not all of their experiences have been through Grok. And I think one of the things is that often, you know, when you see these films or images, you don't know what platform they've been created on. I mean, the only reason why I knew it was Grok was because it was integrated with X, and you could see the commands that had been given by the users. But much of the time, I think when this content is created, most victims don't know by who or on what platform. And so there's really very little that they can do about it. And I think it's that sort of sense of helplessness that, you know, you have been violated. And that is the word that comes up so frequently from victims of this particular issue. And it's not just that it's nudified. Of course, much of my content wasn't. It's the lack of consent. And lots of people say, Oh, but you know, it's just, it's fake, you know, it's fake, right? It's just a laugh. But what people don't understand is that it is hyperrealistic and it's your face. It is piece of you, a piece of your soul. It's not just pixels on the internet. It is a person. And because obviously I've worked for a long time in violence against women and girls and, you know, spoken to many victims of sexual assault and to children who've been victims of child sexual abuse. It is the lack of consent that is so disturbing. And it can leave people with PTSD and quite deep trauma. And there have been a number of people I've met who have said that the world seems less safe to them because this has happened to them. I mean, I think you've already touched on it, but what is the biggest myth around deepfakes that you would wish to dispel, that you now, through experience and through the people that you've spoken to, wish to dispel? That it comes without any harm. That it's just a laugh. That it's just a laugh. There is clear harm. And even when it's not done to demean or degrade, so even if it's done sometimes by friends, the fact is that you haven't consented to that happen. There is something about the human psyche, which is that when you see yourself so realistically created in a different situation or scenario, that's not something you would have done, I think it's quite discombobulating. I think your brain can't quite process it because your brain knows it's not true, but it looks very true. And I think psychologically, we still don't really understand how this content is going to change the way that we think about our world, how we know what is true and what isn't true. Now, of course, you can do fantastic things with generative AI. And all I'm calling for is that we respect people's consent. And that's why one of the things I've been working on since this happened is to look at whether we could create a system of consent to be manipulated by AI. Could we create a greater right over our likeness online so that there's a new social norm, which is that, No, you can't, you know, copy and paste that picture into an AI chatbot and do whatever you want with it. That's not yours. It's not your data. It's their data, and you're breaching the law if you do that. And I think were we to do that, would have a wide range of applications. It wouldn't just be in this space of the sexualization of women and children, but also with political disinformation. We are so close to a moment where somebody produces a, you know, hyperrealistic video of a politician saying something that they didn't, and then that leading to real-world harm. And so we've got to find a new social norm that says, you know, unless for public figures it's parody or satire, absolutely got to protect that. But in all other instances, your picture, your voice, and your moving image is your personal data, and it's not for anyone else to use. So that's interesting because you're touching there on new social norms and the possibility of new laws to keep up with this technology, but your lawsuit is specifically under a data law. Talk to me about that versus a law around consensual imagery or deepfakes particularly. Yeah. So my case is brought under existing law, the GDPR, the data protection law, and it contends that Grok misused my data without my consent. It didn't have consent to process my data, the data being my face, my likeness. But also under privacy laws that I had a reasonable expectation of privacy. And that particularly the video of me being prepared for sexual assault, you know, reaches a criminal threshold, and that nobody should be expected to be on the receiving end of a product. Let's remember this is actually a product that has been designed by software engineers and developers, and that actually products should not lead to an invasion of privacy and the harm that I then experienced as a result of that, including distress and, you know, a sense that I was being harassed by, you know, this particular creation of this particular video. So it rests on good, solid legal grounds, and we await the defense from SpaceX AI. So that was going to be my next question. I don't know how much you can say legally. I'm not sure how you're bound, but what part of the process are you in? What happens next? What's the timeline for a resolution to this case? So like with a lot of legal cases, it's very, very hard to pin down a timeline. But my understanding is that we should be receiving the response and the defense from SpaceX AI, you know, in the near future, but we don't have a deadline or a particular time that I can put on it. After that, my understanding is the case will then be looked at, and, you know, if there is a case to answer, then it will go to a court hearing. But once again, no idea when that might be. And I think there's lots of legal things that I don't understand that need to be worked out in the meantime as well between my lawyers and their lawyers. And have you ever had any acknowledgment on X itself from Elon Musk or anyone at X about this case? Has he ever spoken publicly about it? No. Would you expect him to? I don't think so. They clearly want to challenge this case, and so the best place to do that, I think, is in the courts and to leave it to see whether the merits of the case, you know, come through. You were in New York to address- That's right. Yeah. Address city council about your case. You didn't get to speak to anyone directly at SpaceX, is that right? No. I mean, despite being subpoenaed, they didn't turn up. So four of the other frontier AI companies did attend under subpoena. SpaceX AI didn't, but they eventually did get their hearing with SpaceX in the city council. So, you know, they have now had their opportunity to put questions and indeed did raise my case with them, I understand. Is it a little enraging to attend a hearing like that, a company that you're suing who don't bother turning up? I think it's quite rude to the elected members of New York City Council that you are a business who operates in New York. And indeed I was told that they were just four subway stops from City Hall. So I had traveled, you know, quite a long way from England to be there, and they couldn't be bothered to turn up, which, yeah, it felt arrogant and a bit of a snub, but they've now got there, so that's a good thing. Since you made the decision to take this to courts, there has been a number of proposals in Parliament, notably that there was a proposal for a kill switch bill at one point. Now, I believe it's dead or it's not going very well. Is that right? So yes, there have been proposals put forth for a kill switch. My understanding is that the government rejected that. There continues to be sort of strong calls for, you know, regulation of particularly superintelligent AI. We've heard various theories, whether it's 2%, 10%, 20% risk of human extinction from this sort of race to superintelligence, recursive AI. And we wouldn't allow those margins of risk in any other sphere. We would not allow it in bridge building or airplane making, you know. They didn't even allow it when they were testing the nuclear bomb in the Trinity testings. It feels to me as though so much of this decision-taking is outside of democratic structures. It's not with the public. It is being done by some incredibly, exceptionally wealthy companies and organizations who say that they have the interests of the planet at heart, but each time actually, you know, they're asked about whether that is the future of humanity or, you know, whether they think that these risks could kill humanity, there's a sort of shrugging of the shoulders and, you know, We'll just keep going because we want to make money, I guess. Well, part of the problem, it has been reported in the British press that there are members of Parliament, some of whom are working on committees to deal with technology, who still don't really understand what AI is. And clearly you're not one of them because you are a sort of early adopter of the dangers of this issue. But do you feel, working across parties, that you're still having to explain technology and its dangers and possibilities to people who are making laws or should be making laws to protect the public from AI? Well, look, I don't think that's only the case about AI. We are humans, after all, and we have to deal with every single subject that exists under the sun. We have to get our heads around things that we've never heard of before. A bit like being a journalist, actually. Yeah, that's true. But you don't have to then make laws and decisions. So, you know, I don't want to be unfair to my colleagues. You know, you may be a specialist in housing policy, and you then need to get your head around AI. But I would say that this is the most important issue in front of anybody in Parliament or politics at the moment, and therefore everyone needs to get their head around AI. You know, I'm not a technology expert. My background is in social policy, women and children. But because we did quite a lot of work on the Online Safety Act when I was working for a children's charity, we campaigned to get the age verification ban for children in pornography into the OSA. And indeed, you know, created quite a strong piece of legislation in respect of that. You know, we had to get our heads around, you know, the online space. The problem was, of course, was that act didn't include AI chatbots, which there were a number of members that tried to get it in, and we would have been a much better place had we actually succeeded. But, you know, I'm still not a tech expert, even though I had quite a while to try to understand these things. But my view is that this is definitely the new front line of where harms are occurring. We can see that hugely in the increase in AI-generated child sexual abuse material, which, you know, has quadrupled, right? It is absolutely exploding. And, of course, it all comes down in the end to the people who create the products, and that's why we should be seeing digital product regulation in the same way as we would any other product regulation. My colleague, Tom Collins, has pulled together a brilliant white paper on digital product regulation. I'm very, very hopeful that the government are going to look at it really, really closely, because there are always design choices that you can make, and that can help to then prevent these harms. These harms that are completely knowable, we can predict these harms, and so it should be easy to design them out from the start. That is a common refrain, and that was at the heart of Starmer's message before he left office, compelling companies to do this themselves. They can do it. Why don't they? Profit. But also, let's be honest, these are global tools and companies. And so, unless you have international agreement, it is a bit like playing whack-a-mole, isn't it? I think we've just seen that Ofcom have had to sort of drop their case on 4chan because essentially 4chan appealed and they're based in America, and it's one of those things where, if you can't get the international architecture right, you can have an in-country laws, and you can enforce them, of course, but that's always up into a point where actually, you know, the person who made that horrible video of me being chloroformed lives in the US. So the police aren't going to follow it up because they're out of country. Do you know exactly who it is? You know who did it? I don't know who they are, but the police did find who they were because, you know, it's a criminal offense, what they did. They just weren't able to bring the charge. We've spoken in the last 40 minutes about really the full spectrum of human awfulness. I don't think there's any area of it that we haven't covered. Oh, sorry. [laughs] Welcome to my life. Well, that's- Right, I do all the dark things, as I tell people. I'm really struck by how cheerful you are despite this. How do you remain so upbeat, hopeful, dare I suggest, whilst dealing with all of this information? Because you've always got to have hope for the future. And I do have a really strong conviction that the right group of people pushing towards a goal, you can achieve that. And that you don't have to accept that things will always be like this. That when people come together, when communities come together, you can act for change. And I guess I've proved in some of the things that I've been able to introduce into legislation. We've just about to introduce our ban on strangulation in pornography, which is another thing that I've been campaigning for and introduced an amendment last year, which the government accepted. There are always things that we can do to change. You just need to keep going. Also, I would say that when you work with these terribly dark areas, yes, it can be quite vicariously traumatizing, but actually the people who work within the sectors are some of the most hopeful people, partly because if you lose hope, then it's really bad. And we can't because we're talking about protecting, you know, vulnerable children, and we are fighting for women and our rights to be free of this harm. Thank you, Jess. It was really great to speak to you today, and good luck fighting the good fight. Thank you so much for your time. It's really lovely to meet you. 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