Karin Keller-Sutter last month filed a criminal complaint for “defamation” and/or “insult”, ministry spokesman Pascal Hollenstein told AFP, confirming a report by the Tages-Anzeiger daily.
The complaint, “against persons unknown”, had been filed with the Bern public prosecutor’s office on March 20, he said.
The complaint focused on abuse against her on X, generated by Grok, and follows an international backlash against the AI chatbot for allowing people create and share sexualised pictures of women and children using simple text prompts.
In the Swiss case, a user on X instructed Grok on March 10 to roast “Federal Councillor KKS, my favourite chick”, urging it to “tear her down really hard, with total fxxxing street slang”, Tages-Anzeiger reported.
As a result, a barrage of “vulgar and sexist” remarks flooded Keller-Sutter’s account on the platform, which has not been active since she completed her year as Swiss president last December 31, it said.
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Switzerland has a rotating presidency, which passes annually between the seven government ministers.
Keller-Sutter became aware of the insults on March 11, and the next day, the user deleted the conversation, Tages-Anzeiger said.
The paper said it knew the identity of the 75-year-old user, but had decided to refer to him only as R.O.
“Such misogyny cannot be considered normal or acceptable,” Hollenstein told the paper.
The question is who should be held responsible. Can R.O be held accountable for comments he did not himself write?
Hollenstein confirmed to AFP the accuracy of the Tages-Anzeiger story, which affirmed that Keller-Sutter’s legal action against “persons unknown” could potentially be extended to target officials at X.
The government, it said, wanted to investigate whether X officials had knowingly, or even intentionally, enabled Grok to facilitate defamation offences, it said.
The Swiss branch of X hand declined to comment for the Tages-Anzeiger story, but it said R.O. had been willing to talk, describing his conversation with Grok about Keller-Sutter as a “game”.
“It was a harmless technical exercise to see what’s possible with Grok,” the paper quoted him as saying.
