Grok Deepfaked This UK Politician—Now She’s Taking Elon Musk’s xAI To Court

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.

[upbeat music]