But Keller-Sutter likely suspects that Swiss law may also hold the platform liable for the type of defamation that she describes.
Reuters noted that she specifically asked prosecutors to investigate if X owed a duty of care to prevent Grok from generating such posts or if X “made Grok available with the knowledge or even intent that the technology could be used to commit criminal offenses.” If prosecutors agree that either charge is true, Musk may be forced to make changes to Grok’s safeguards in the country.
Whether defamation law applies to chatbot outputs has been widely debated in courts for years, so far with little clarity offered from regulators globally.
However, regulators in the United Kingdom and the European Union have laws that “leave room” for claims that “assert that automated systems cause reputational harm,” lawyers writing for Bloomberg Law noted last December.
Switzerland is not part of the EU. But should Keller-Sutter’s case fail, the country may consider updating laws.
The lawyers writing for Bloomberg anticipated that regulators globally may trend toward updating defamation laws to cover chatbot outputs soon, since chatbots unreliably generate billions of statements daily that could inflict widespread societal harms if left unchecked.
Last month, human rights researcher Irem Cakmak noted that women’s “constant exposure to online abuse, combined with gender bias in emerging technologies, may suppress women’s willingness and ability to engage with new technological tools.” If women perceive AI tools as misogynistic and avoid them because of that, it “could have long-term consequences for women’s participation in economic and social life,” she warned.
Who’s responsible for Grok’s harmful posts?
Grok has been involved in several controversies, prompting debates over who’s responsible for chatbot “speech.”
Since Musk removed “woke” filters last July, Grok has praised Hitler, among other antisemitic outputs, prompting outcry from users, civil rights advocates, and lawmakers.
Most recently, the Grok CSAM backlash led to bans on the chatbot’s “undressing” feature and fines ordered by a Dutch court, CNBC reported. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission has yet to take action, but California launched a probe, and Baltimore became the first city to sue xAI over the feature in March.