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Ashley St. Clair, who is the mother of the youngest son of Elon Musk, did not hesitate to discuss the billionaire’s assertion that he was going to court for the complete custody of their little boy. In a recent television interview, St. Clair framed her decision to talk as a part of a larger struggle for laws on the regulation of the Artificial Intelligence platforms that can be responsible for the generation of such content as the one she claims the technology to be. The private legal dispute has overlapped with a public policy debate and as a result, it has attracted the most intense interest from the onlookers.
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This week the situation took a twist when Musk publicly expressed his desire to go for full custody by citing St. Clair’s words as worrisome. He referred to St. Clair’s earlier apology concerning her past statements on the transgender issue, which Musk took as an indication that she might switch their one-year-old boy. St. Clair did not want to discuss custody matters in her interview, but still, she made her position very clear and strong against that interpretation.
St. Clair stated, ‘Anyone who has a comprehension level of more than a third grader knows what I was hinting at.’ She did not want to elaborate on the litigation at all. Rather she pulled the argument back to her main point, which was the so-called dangers of artificial intelligence image makers.
The ex-wife of the tech mogul commented live on air, ‘This is no longer about me.’ ‘It is about venturing into the realms and building of AI systems that can cause extensive harm to women and children and be unaccounted for.’ She accused the likes of Musk’s xAI which is the developer behind Grok, the chatbot, of merely doing ‘damage control’ by implementing security measures post the harm, and hence not creating danger-free systems right from the beginning. She claimed that the adverse influence of her campaign has been the reason for the reduction of Grok’s image generation capability.
The simultaneous publicity of a high-profile custody contest and approached a difficult area of ethics in tech use has led to a heated debate. The comments made were very revealing as they led to the questioning of St. Clair’s character and the intentions behind her actions.
One social media user quickly dismissed St. Clair, commenting: ‘This woman is a fraudster, nothing more! I do not believe a word that she says! She is just a scorned lover looking for her limelight.’ Another commentator went even further and labeled her a ‘Vile human being.’
There were also remarks made on the actual relationship between Musk and St. Clair. One remark was in the spirit of, ‘Why does Elon keep having kids with these borderline women?’, referring to a specific personality disorder. Another user casually suggested: ‘The guy made a woman with a neediness level of 5 pregnant.’
The poster’s mocking of her looks was evident. One commenter went: ‘She is just an average-looking girl in real life,’ while another stated, ‘Yeah… she looks nothing like that. I don’t cool what Elon found in her. I think she looks strange.’ Such personal attacks though indirectly were a reflection of how much even her looks are being scrutinized as a consequence of the harsh public gaze St. Clair gets.
Amidst the criticism, there were some commentators trying to sift through the claims of St. Clair. A skeptical user raised a very logical counter: ‘Look, I am a logical and smart woman. If a billionaire I had a sexual relationship with ran a company that produced pornographic images of me, I would make sure to take a screenshot and share it EVERYWHERE as evidence… She didn’t do that. So, I am 97% sure that it never happened.’
In that context, the talk shifted to family structures. ‘This indicates to me that a family with a father figure is a wholesome family,’ one member of the audience said. ‘Money can’t replace dad.’ On the other hand, one made a statement in support of fathers saying: ‘Your presence is worth more than a billion dollars.’
St. Clair is leaning back on the perception of lesser evil and trying to redirect the public’s gaze towards her ‘fight’. She has accused the parties of using ‘very tabloid tweets’ to distract from the main issue of AI safety. ‘They are trying to push it to the second page of Google because they want it to be forgotten,’ she claims, ‘and I don’t think we should let it go.’
Her claims are grounded on the need for preventative laws. ‘One cannot brag and claim to be a disruptor in the industry and then completely erase one’s liability once the damage and harm have been done,’ she very clearly drew the line pointing at Musk’s business mentality.
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The interview did not disclose new details regarding the still legally sealed custody case. St. Clair has frequently pronounced that she is ‘not in a position to speak’ about those matters, such as if Donald Trump were to comment on judicial matters.