GoKawiilLast month, Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter filed a criminal complaint over an offensive Grok post generated by an X user that requested that the chatbot “roast” the government official.
According to Bloomberg, Keller-Sutter’s complaint seeks to hold the X user accountable for defamation and verbal abuse. She also “asked the prosecutor to assess whether X also bears responsibility” for failing to block Grok’s misogynistic and “vulgar” outputs.
The finance ministry described the Grok output as “blatant denigration of a woman,” Bloomberg reported, while emphasizing that “such misogyny must not be seen as normal or acceptable.”
X and Grok-developer xAI did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.
However, since launching the chatbot, xAI founder Elon Musk has encouraged X users to prompt Grok to generate such roasts. An xAI spokesperson recently boasted to Fox News that Grok is the only “non-woke” chatbot on the market.
Swiss law threatens up to three years of prison time or a fine for any person found responsible for the intentional publication of offensive material, Reuters reported. Throwing out insults to soil someone’s reputation or besmirch their honor also carries the risk of fines in Switzerland, but that risk is diminished if the insults are retracted.
On X, the anonymous user at the center of Keller-Sutter’s complaint deleted their prompt within two days of when Grok generated the response, Reuters reported.
That user claimed no harm was intended by the post, describing it as a “technical exercise” to see if Grok would roast the Swiss official.
Determined to take a stand against misogyny and defend the reputation of the governing Federal Council, Keller-Sutter’s suit may end up unmasking the user. Speaking to a Swiss news outlet, a professor of criminal law, Monika Simmler, suggested that “there is a good chance of prosecuting the authors of such prompts, even if the posts are subsequently deleted,” but did not opine on X or xAI’s risk of liability.
Did X owe a duty of care?
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