xAI sues Grok user over alleged CSAM images

xAI has filed its first lawsuit against a Grok user accused of creating illegal sexual images, a move that also sharpens the company’s argument that users—not the platform—should bear liability for harmful AI-generated content.

The complaint, filed Tuesday, targets Terry Wayne Harwood, who was arrested earlier this year on charges tied to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to the South Carolina attorney’s office. xAI said it helped authorities after finding that Harwood had used two xAI accounts for months to “undress” or “nudify” non-sexual images of multiple victims, including a girl who appeared to be as young as 10.

The filing lands just over a week after another alleged victim, a young girl, joined a proposed class action against xAI. She claimed her stepfather used Grok, possibly alongside other AI tools, to create 7,000 sexualized images of her and distribute them on the dark web before he died by suicide. In that case, the victim alleged xAI refused to help police identify the user who uploaded her image to Grok. Her lawyers pointed to a 2026 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children report saying 90 percent of xAI’s CyberTipline reports were “not actionable by law enforcement because xAI declined to include user information that would allow law enforcement to track and locate perpetrators.”

xAI’s case against the user

In its lawsuit, xAI said Harwood used accounts with the usernames “ceae2cb4-a9f6-4885-8ae9-6e2096d084f4” and “befccb94-4029-454d-9f1f-0d4945e8fa7c” to generate illegal content between December 8 and February 18. The company said Grok sometimes blocked requests that violated its moderation rules, including one prompt explicitly asking it to “remove all her clothing.”

xAI did not publish examples of prompts that succeeded, saying only that Harwood changed prompts to bypass safeguards, including some requests for “obscene” images involving the “likeness of minor children.” A spokesperson for the South Carolina attorney general’s office told Ars that Harwood’s case is still pending and that he has been charged with “distributing, transporting, exhibiting, receiving, selling, purchasing, exchanging, or soliciting CSAM that was 'through the use of an artificial intelligence platform.'” The spokesperson was not authorized to confirm whether Grok was that platform.

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xAI argues outputs are user content

The broader goal of the lawsuit is clear: xAI wants a court to affirm that Grok is “a neutral tool, subject to user control” and that users are responsible for both their prompts and the images the system generates.

“Like any generative AI tool, every response, every image, every generation is the result of the user’s prompts and directions.”

xAI said it sued partly to avoid “substantial legal fees” and the “risk of considerable liability for damages” if Harwood’s alleged victims sue the company. Its terms of service ban users from using Grok to “undress or nudify real persons,” depict real people in sexual contexts, portray people pornographically, or sexualize children.

The company is asking the US district court to find that Harwood breached his contract with xAI and, crucially, to enforce an indemnity clause that would leave liability for Grok-generated CSAM and NCII with users alone. Whether a court accepts that argument remains unsettled. Ars notes that the Copyright Office does not treat AI outputs as human-created, a position that could complicate xAI’s claim that users legally “create” the resulting images.

If xAI wins, Harwood could face damages tied to harm to third parties, xAI’s exposure to other lawsuits, and alleged reputational damage to the company.

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