- 49 minutes ago
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.
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00:00I wanted to take you back to the beginning of this year, January 2026, there was widespread
00:04reporting of Grok XAI's chatbot being used to create sexualised images of children and women
00:11and those images being circulated on X. How aware were you at this point of the phenomenon of deep
00:18fakes being used in this way? Very aware and actually have been working with survivors who
00:25had experienced deep fakes for quite a number of years, ever since the advent of AI has been
00:33happening to women and the developing risks of children both being put into child sexual abuse
00:43material but also children using nudification tools on other children, thereby criminalising
00:51themselves because these tools are so easy to access, often free. So I was already very alive
00:57to the huge harms being created by AI deep fakes of both women and children before Grok ever
01:06happened. It was a known harm, which is why many of the tools from other companies had already
01:15taken steps to stop them from being used to create this kind of content and there are a number of
01:22tools where you type in nudify or take the clothes off this person and the tool were refused to do
01:29that.
01:30So into that environment came Grok. Was there a particularly egregious example, an incident prior
01:36to Grok when you became aware of deep fakes that really stuck with you? I think it was probably
01:40listening to the experiences of Jodie who was deep faked and it was such an affront to her that
01:49somebody would do this and then she found out it was actually a friend. Such a betrayal of trust.
01:56These things destroy not just the individual involved but often families and everyone around
02:02them too. For people who don't know, who exactly was Jodie? Is this a constituent of yours or someone
02:07who came forward to you specifically? No, no, no. She's a very well-known campaigner on this issue.
02:13That's not her real name. Before what happened was that victims had to prove that there was no
02:18consent and now it's up to the perpetrators to prove that there was no consent to create these
02:22images. I know it sounds obvious but what exactly is nudification? Well it is where you ask an AI tool
02:29to take the image or video of a real person and using generative AI to make that person either nude
02:39or
02:40engaging in pornographic acts or making a part of them nude. This is something that because of the
02:48the huge development of AI and the real photorealistic nature of it, it has become increasingly hard
02:58to see this as a fake image. It can often look incredibly, incredibly real.
03:05So what was it particularly about the Grok scandal earlier this year that made you want to raise this
03:13in the House of Commons? It was the fact that we already knew that you could stop this from happening
03:19by designing the AI tool to reject the ability to do this but it actually says that the tool should
03:28accept asks for the creation of adult sexual content even that which has dark or violent themes
03:35and the fact was that this was completely avoidable and that's why I spoke out but also because I'd just
03:42spent a year and a half campaigning to get a ban on nudification apps and here was an all-purpose
03:49AI tool becoming a nudification app and it just felt to me as though you know we were making strides
03:56in
03:56the UK and then the world's richest man and his product decided to turn the clock back. So what exactly
04:03did you stand up and say? What I did was I talked about the need for the government to accelerate
04:09their ban on nudification apps which they did. So the Secretary of State Liz Kendall said that she
04:15was going to bring that ban into law through the Crime and Policing Bill which she did. But I also
04:22said
04:23that it was very important that we went further than that because of course Grok itself is not a
04:32sole purpose nudification tool it has a general use and therefore we needed to bring all AI
04:39chatbots under the auspices of the Online Safety Act and we're now waiting until that legislation comes
04:45into effect. There's got to be a consultation I understand before it does. So technically another
04:52Grok could happen in this period but in the future there would be much stronger measures
04:59um that we could we could take against tools like Grok creating uh nudification content.
05:05So that's a really positive outcome of your interjection in in Parliament but what else
05:10happened as a result of you standing up? Well one of the the things that happened was that I
05:16I posted on on social saying that you know Elon Musk should stop and stop Grok from being able to
05:22do this
05:22and then of course I became a victim of um you know the same trend so at Grok put this
05:29woman in a bikini
05:30and you know most of the images you know were sort of pornified I would say so they weren't
05:36nude images um but they were me with you know inflated boobs in a bikini um then people tried to
05:45you know make it funny I guess by putting you know a swastika on me uh all hammer and sickles
05:52depending on my friends or making me pregnant with quintuplets and putting me in a kitchen
05:58because of course that's the only use for women is birthing and making dinner but the the kind of
06:03the really disturbing one was a video of me being surrounded by a group of men um chloroformed
06:12over my mat and then I fall backwards um onto a chair and then my skirts are lifted up so
06:19no nudity but clearly the next frame is is meant to be a sexual assault so you know it was
06:26really
06:27really distressing um and disturbing that was the point at which friends said you probably need to
06:33reach out to a lawyer because each of each of these things we reported to x and you know none
06:37of
06:37them contravened their terms and conditions um we just keep getting those sort of repeat emails
06:43coming back we've looked into this and um there's there's nothing to see here so um I did engage a
06:49lawyer who sent a letter a letter to x to ask for these to be removed and they were but
06:55it was at that
06:56point that he said actually I think you might actually have a case uh we think that xai have broken
07:03I mean I think it's brilliant that you did that and I can see the through line of your legal
07:07training
07:08and um how practically you tackle things but when you were just telling me that it really turned my
07:15stomach I had a very physical reaction to you describing what they did and I I I just I wanted
07:21to sort of find out more about how it felt I mean I'm really impressed by how how you how
07:27you handled it
07:28and and and and the sort of default to action but it must have been really awful it was awful
07:35it you
07:36know this is done to demean to degrade um and to push women out of online spaces um from my
07:44perspective
07:45uh I tend to use bad or difficult things that happen as a way of thinking about how do we
07:54change
07:55um this for the future um my old boss was an amazing woman called tessa jow and she used to
08:01say to me if anything went wrong she would say how do we change this negative energy into something
08:07positive how do we how do we work our way out this into um into a place where we actually
08:13feel that
08:14we've learned from it and so I guess you know she instilled in me that sort of sense that when
08:21you've got a choice um you can you can you can wallow it in it you can try and forget
08:28about it
08:28or you can use it as a catalyst for change and so um I was quite trepidatious about the idea
08:34of taking
08:35on a legal action not least because of the person who is at the top of xai now space xai
08:42uh he's the
08:43world's richest man um but also because um I didn't want myself to necessarily be the story
08:49many many women you know had things that were created of them through both guac but also other
08:55nudification tools that are much much worse uh having said that I knew that if there was the
09:03opportunity to say that actually they've broken the law there was an important point of principle
09:09on behalf of all of the women and the children whose images were manipulated and misused by guac who
09:17would never ever be able to bring a legal case and so um I I decided that you know I
09:24wanted to do this
09:25because I wanted to be able to show that no one no one is bigger than the law it doesn't
09:32matter how
09:33rich you are or how powerful you are um or how a bigger reach you have in terms of your
09:40social media
09:41presence um or who your friends might be at the top of various governments if you break the law in
09:47our
09:48country um you need to feel the force of that um and as as an ex-lawyer and now as
09:55a legislator
09:55it is important that you know we uphold our law where it has been broken and so it's also about
10:01giving control back I think to us as individuals but also as a society so many of these digital
10:07changes have been done without our consent I'll say um you know and I think there's a feeling that
10:15there's a sort of runaway train that we're all on whether we want to be or not because we all
10:20need
10:20to use online spaces for our work for connection um and so my view is is that we should be
10:30expecting
10:30companies to respect our law uh or at least make new laws um to bring them more into line with
10:37what
10:37society really needs you said there that you you gave it some thought in that moment of trying to
10:44decide how to respond what are you weighing up who are you talking to are you going back and talking
10:49to
10:50your team or your family to work out how you how you should respond knowing that it may invite
10:58further speculation and further attention my family mostly so my husband in particular it's one thing
11:04you know being a politician and arguing your case uh to change the law on behalf of women and children
11:11it's another having your own legal case and so I um was worried about the impact that that might have
11:18on my family my children I'll be honest because I have been you know at the heart of uh pylons
11:25on
11:25ex before um I also know that this can bring danger to politicians and so I worried about the fact
11:34that
11:34you know I am obviously engaging and making the defendant uh somebody who has got this very
11:40wide reach um on on social media however I don't I don't like bullies and um I I very strongly
11:50believe
11:50that it's important to fight um on the field that you've got and this was an opportunity I felt to
11:58make a difference so um I weighed that up and thought that it was worth it was worth you know
12:05having that kind of attention spotlight and potential danger um because there is a bigger issue here that
12:12we need to we need to get right when you say you don't like bullies are you talking about the
12:17let's face it men who who used grok in this way in the first place or are you talking about
12:22Elon Musk
12:22I'm talking about yeah the men he used this as a form of trying to push women out of um
12:28the online
12:29space and and actually it's was quite clear in quite a lot of the comments um that you know they
12:35were saying well if you don't like this then get off the platform either that or you know if this
12:41is
12:41too hot for you get out of the kitchen which I always find quite funny because they put me in
12:44a
12:44kitchen it's a bit like do you want me in the kitchen or outfit and I think it's really interesting
12:47when you look at x in terms of its demographics in the UK um it's it's highly weighted towards men
12:54so women are already you know voting with their feet in in relation to this particular platform
13:00um and I think some of that's down to the fact that there is just so much misogyny
13:04and abuse on it so I'm assuming correct me if I'm wrong that the other side of the response to
13:10going public and deciding to continue with being public on this issue and to fight it in court
13:15is that other women have come forward to you did you have other women coming forward talking to you
13:20about your decision to to make this legal absolutely and actually that has been one of the
13:26I guess the heartening things has both been people coming forward and saying thank you because this has
13:32now given me the license to actually accept that what happened to me you know wasn't my fault it's not
13:39my shame um and so in in a way what I'm hoping is that this has helped some victims to
13:46process what
13:47has happened to them and understand that this was not right it's not right I've also had emails from
13:53parents um where they've said that this has happened to their daughter uh it's been done by boys at
13:59school I've had teachers saying that boys have made pornographic AI imagery of them um and uh it it is
14:08actually quite rife um and it's something where we've just sort of let it happen and wash over us
14:15and accept that somehow this is now a part of the society we live in so yes quite a number
14:20of people
14:20have come forward obviously not not all of their experiences have been through grok and I think one
14:24of the one of the things is is that often you know when you see uh these films or images
14:31you don't know
14:32what platform they've been created on I mean the only reason why I knew it was grok was because it
14:38was integrated with x and you could see the commands that had been given by the users but much of
14:45the
14:46time I think um when this content is created most victims don't know by who or on what platform and
14:52so
14:52there's really very little that they can do about it um and I think it's that sort of sense of
14:59helplessness that um you know you have been violated and that is the word that comes up so
15:04frequently from uh victims of this this particular um issue and it's not just that it's um nudified of
15:15course much of my content wasn't it's the lack of consent and lots of people say oh but you know
15:22it's just it's it's fake you know it's fake right um it's just a laugh but what people don't
15:28understand is that it is hyper realistic and it's your face it's it is piece of you a piece of
15:36your
15:36soul it's not just pixels on the internet um it is a person and because obviously I've worked for
15:44a long time in violence against women and girls and um you know spoken to many victims of um sexual
15:51assault and to children who've been victims of child sexual abuse it is the lack of consent
15:57that is so disturbing and it can leave people with PTSD um and quite deep trauma and there have
16:04been a number of people I've met who have said that the world seems less safe to them because this
16:09has
16:09happened to them I mean I think you've already touched on it but what is the biggest myth around
16:15deepfakes that you would wish to dispel that you now through experience and through the people
16:21that you've spoken to wish to dispel that it comes without any harm that it's just a laugh
16:28that it's just a laugh there is clear harm and even when it's not done to demean or degrade so
16:36even if
16:36it's done sometimes by friends um the fact is is that you haven't consented to that happen there is
16:44something about the human psyche which is that when you see yourself so realistically created in a
16:50different situation or scenario something where you have that's not something you would have done
16:54I think it it's quite discombobulating I think your brain can't quite process it because your brain
17:00knows it's not true but it looks very true and I think psychologically we we still don't really
17:05understand um how how this content is going to change the way that we think about our world and
17:12how we know what is true and what isn't true now of course you can do fantastic things with generative
17:19AI
17:19um and all I'm calling for is that we respect people's consent and that's why one of the things
17:25I've been working on um since this happened is to look at whether we could create a system of consent
17:31to
17:32to be manipulated by AI could we create a greater right over our likeness online so that um there's a
17:41new
17:41social norm which is that no you can't you know copy and paste that picture into an AI chatbot and
17:48do
17:48whatever you want with it that's not yours it's not your data it's their data and you're breaching the
17:53law if you do that and I think were we to do that would have a wide range of um
17:58applications it wouldn't
17:59just be in this space of the sexualization of women and children but also with political disinformation
18:05we are so close to a moment where somebody produces a you know hyper-realistic video of a
18:14politician saying something that they didn't and then that leading to real world harm um and so we've
18:19got we've got to find a new social norm that says um you know unless for public figures it's parody
18:25or
18:26satire absolutely you've got to protect that um but in all other instances um your picture your voice
18:33and your moving image is your personal data and it's not for anyone else to use so that's
18:39interesting because you're touching there on new social norms and the possibility of new laws to keep
18:45up with this technology but you are your lawsuit is specifically under a data law talk to me about
18:51that versus a law around consensual imagery or deep fakes particularly yeah so my case is brought
18:58under existing law the gdpr the data protection law and it contends that grok misused my my data
19:07without my consent it didn't have consent to process my data and the data being my face um my likeness
19:14um but also under um privacy laws that i had a reasonable expectation of privacy um and that
19:23particularly the the video of me being prepared for sexual assault um you know reaches a criminal
19:31threshold and that nobody should be expected to be on the receiving end of a product let's remember
19:37this is actually a product that has been designed by software engineers and developers and that actually
19:44products should not lead to an invasion of privacy and the harm that i then experienced as a result of
19:50that including distress and you know a sense that i was being harassed by um you know this this
19:57particular creation of of this particular video so it rests on on good solid legal grounds and we
20:03um await the defense um from spacex ai so that was going to be my next question i don't know
20:09how much
20:10you can say legally i'm not sure how you're bound but what part of the process are you in what
20:15happens
20:15next what's the timeline for a resolution to this case so like with a lot of legal cases it's very
20:22very hard to pin down a timeline um but my understanding is is that um we we should be
20:29receiving uh the response and the defense from spacex ai um you know in in the near future but we
20:36don't have a deadline um or a particular time that i can put on it um after that my understanding
20:43is
20:43the case will then be looked at and um you know if there is a case to answer then it
20:48will go to
20:49a court hearing but once again no idea when that might be um and i think there's lots of legal
20:54things
20:55that i don't understand um that need to be worked out in the meantime as well between between my lawyers
21:00and their lawyers and have you ever had any acknowledgement on x itself from elon musk or
21:07anyone at x about this case has he ever spoken publicly about it no would you expect him to i
21:14don't think so they clearly want to challenge this case and and so the best place to do that i
21:20think is
21:21is in the courts and to leave it to see whether the merits of the case um you know come
21:26through
21:27you were in new york to address that's right address city council about your case
21:32um you didn't get to speak to anyone directly at spacex is that right no i mean despite being
21:39subpoenaed they didn't turn up um so four of the other frontier um ai companies uh did attend under
21:47subpoena um spacex ai didn't but they eventually did get their hearing um with spacex uh in the city
21:57council say um you know they have now had their opportunity to put questions um and indeed uh did
22:03raise my case with with with them i understand uh is it in a little enraging to attend a hearing
22:10like
22:10that a company that you're suing who don't bother turning up i think it's quite rude to the elected
22:16members of new york city council um that you are a business who operates uh in new york uh and
22:25indeed i
22:25was told that they were just four subway stops uh from uh city hall so i had traveled you know
22:32quite a long way from england to be there um and they couldn't be bothered um to turn up which
22:39um
22:39yeah it felt uh arrogant and a bit of a snub but they've now got there so that's a good
22:44thing since
22:44you made the decision to take this to the courts there has been a number of proposals in parliament
22:48notably that there was a proposal for a kill switch bill at one point though i i believe it's
22:55dead or it's not going very well is that right so um yes there have been um proposals put forward
23:02for
23:02a kill switch my understanding is that the government rejected that and there continues to be um so strong
23:10calls for you know regulation of particularly super intelligent ai we've heard uh various theories
23:17whether it's two percent ten percent twenty percent risk of human extinction um from this this sort of
23:24race to super intelligence uh recursive um ai and we wouldn't allow those margins of risk in any any
23:34other sphere we would not allow it in bridge building or airplane making you know they didn't even
23:40allow it when they were testing the nuclear bomb and the trinity testings it feels to me as though
23:46so so much of this decision taking is outside of democratic structures it's not with the public
23:53um it is being done by some incredibly exceptionally wealthy companies and organizations
24:01who say that they have the interests of the planet at heart but each time actually you know they're asked
24:08about whether that is the future of humanity or um you know whether they think that these risks
24:14could could kill humanity there's a sort of shrugging of the shoulders and you know we'll just keep
24:19going because we want to make money i guess well part of the problem it has been reported in the
24:26british
24:27press that there are members of parliament some of whom who are working on committees to do with
24:32technology who still don't really understand what ai is and clearly you're not one of them because
24:36you're a sort of early adopter of the dangers um of this issue but do you feel working across parties
24:44that you're still having to explain technology and its dangers and possibilities to people who
24:52are making laws or should be making laws um to protect the public from ai well look i don't think
24:58that's only the case about ai and we are humans after all and we have to deal with every single
25:04subject that exists under the sun uh we have to get our heads around things that we've never heard
25:10of before a bit like being a journalist actually yeah that's true um but you don't have to then make
25:16laws and decisions um so you know i don't want to be unfair to my colleagues um you know you
25:23may be a
25:24specialist in housing policy and uh you then need to get your head around ai but i would say
25:29that um this is the most important issue in front of anybody in parliament or politics at the moment
25:37and therefore everyone needs to get their head around ai you know i'm not a technology expert my
25:42background is in social policy um women and children um but uh because we did quite a lot of work
25:49on the
25:49online safety act when i was working for a children's charity we campaigned uh to get the age
25:55verification um ban for children uh in pornography into the osa um and indeed you know created quite
26:03a strong um piece of legislation in respect of of that um you know we had to get our heads
26:09around
26:10you know the online space the problem was of course was that act didn't include a i chatbots which um
26:16there were a number of amendments that tried to get it in um and we would have been a much
26:20better place
26:20had we actually succeeded um but you know i'm still not a tech expert even though i had quite a
26:27while to try to understand these things but my view is is that this is definitely the new front line
26:33of where harms are occurring we can see that hugely in the increase in ai generated child sexual
26:40abuse material um which you know has quadrupled right it is absolutely exploding and of course it all
26:47comes down in the end to the people who create the products and that's why we should be seeing
26:52a digital product regulation in the same way as we would any other product regulation
26:57my colleague tom collins has um pulled together a brilliant white paper on digital product regulation
27:03i'm very very hopeful that the government are going to look at it really really closely
27:07because there are always design choices that you can make and that can help to then prevent
27:12these harms these harms these harms that are completely knowable what we we can predict these
27:17harms and so it should be easy to design them out from the start that is a common refrain and
27:23that
27:23was at the heart of starmer's message before he left office um compelling companies to do this
27:27themselves they can do it why don't they profit but also let's be honest these are global uh tools and
27:37companies and so unless you have international agreement um it is a bit like playing whack-a-mole
27:43isn't it we've i think we've just seen that um ofcom have had to sort of drop their case about
27:50on 4chan
27:51because um essentially 4chan appealed and they're based in america and it's one of those things where
27:58if you can't get the international architecture right you can have an in-country laws and you can
28:04enforce them of course but that that's always up into a point but
28:07where actually you know the person who made that horrible video of me being chloroformed lives in
28:13in the u.s so the police aren't going to follow it up because they're out of country do you
28:18know
28:19exactly who it is you know who did it i don't know who they are um but the police um
28:25did did find who
28:26they were because um you know it's a criminal a criminal offense um what they did and they just
28:34they just weren't able to bring bring the charge we've spoken in the last 40 minutes about really
28:39the full spectrum of human awfulness i don't think there's any area of it that we haven't covered
28:44sorry well i do all the dark things as i tell people i'm really struck by how cheerful you are
28:52despite this um how how do you remain so upbeat um hopeful dare i suggest uh whilst dealing with
29:02all of this um information because you've always got to have hope for the future and uh i do have
29:08a
29:08really strong conviction that the right group of people um pushing towards a goal you can achieve
29:15that and and that you don't have to accept that things will always be like this and that when
29:21people come together when communities come together you can act for change and i guess i've proved in
29:27some of the things that i've been able to introduce into legislation we're just about to introduce our
29:31ban on strangulation in pornography which is another thing that i've been campaigning for and introduced an
29:36amendment um uh last year which the government accepted there are always things that we can do to
29:42change you just need to keep going also i would say that when when you work with these terribly dark
29:50areas um yes it can it can be quite vicariously traumatizing but actually the people who work within
29:59the sectors are some of the most hopeful people partly because um if you lose hope then it is it's
30:08really
30:08bad and we can't because we're talking about protecting um you know vulnerable children
30:16and we are fighting for women and our rights to be free of this harm thank you jess it was
30:22really
30:22great to speak to you today and good luck fighting the good fight thank you so much for your time
30:26it's
30:26great to meet you
30:27really lovely to meet you
30:27really lovely to meet you