Alleged Generation of Child Sexual Abuse Material Deepfakes; xAI Sued by Baltimore City for Damages

Phoenix Technology News, March 25 — According to Reuters, the city of Baltimore, USA, has officially filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, accusing its AI chatbot Grok of illegally generating explicit pornographic images and child exploitation content without consent. As the largest city to sue xAI over “deepfake” issues so far, Baltimore, with a population of approximately 568,000, filed a complaint in circuit court stating that xAI publicly markets Grok as a safe, general AI assistant, but its actual operations are suspected of violating consumer protection laws.

Court documents reveal extensive data on content generation by the tool. According to estimates by the Anti-Digital Hate Center based on 20,000 samples, approximately 3 million realistic sexual images were generated on social platform X over 11 days earlier this year, including over 23,000 involving minors. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott issued a statement accusing the tech company of facilitating child sexual exploitation and emphasized the need to hold responsible parties legally accountable. Additionally, the complaint cites a self-portrait of Musk wearing a blue bikini, generated by Grok on December 31, 2025, as evidence, claiming it serves as a “public endorsement” of the AI tool’s ability to generate real-person exposed images.

As the situation escalates, Grok, launched in 2023, is facing regulatory investigations across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Although xAI announced in mid-January that it would restrict Grok’s image editing features in certain jurisdictions, and Musk claimed at the time to be “completely unaware” of any violations involving minors, legal disputes continue. In this lawsuit, Baltimore seeks not only an unspecified fine but also a court order to force xAI to fundamentally change Grok’s design features that are deemed “exploitative.” To date, neither the parent company SpaceX, with a recent valuation of approximately $1.25 trillion after a merger, nor xAI has issued an official response to the lawsuit.

(Edited by: He Chong)

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