Social media giant X “will face the full rigours of the law” in Ireland over its Grok nudification tool, the Minister with responsibility for artificial intelligence (AI) has told the Dáil.
Minister of State Niamh Smyth, who is meeting X executives on Friday, said the State has sufficient legislation in place to deal with the manipulation of photos.
The big tech companies have been invited to attend the Oireachtas media committee on February 4th, and Ms Smyth warned “it is critically important that they present themselves in front of our legislators”.
She said there are three “very robust laws in place” to deal with Grok and similar apps. “We have Coco’s law, we have the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act. We also have the online safety Act.”
“The law makes it very clear to me … it is illegal in this country to create these images. It is illegal in this country to possess these images. It is illegal in this country to disseminate these images. And it is illegal in this country to share these images.”
Ms Smyth had earlier in an RTÉ interview said she would be meeting the Attorney General to make sure there are no loopholes in legislation, but in a Dáil debate on AI she told TDs the three laws “as far as I am concerned, make sure that the provision is there, that the law does not allow this to continue”.
Ms Smyth welcomed moves by the social media platform to further restrict the controversial Grok app, but said she wanted “absolute confidence” on legal issues before engaging with the company.
She said she would tell X that what happened “over the last week is illegal and they will face the full rigours of the law here in Ireland in doing so”.
“I don’t think we could be any clearer in this country”, these are “the rules here in Ireland, and I would appeal to any of the companies who are listening to this to obey and obide by these laws”.
She also appealed to An Garda Siochána to “enforce, enforce, enforce” and for anyone affected by such apps to “report, report, report”.
On Thursday, X said the Grok AI function would no longer allow users to manipulate photos of people, so they would appear in revealing clothing, in places where this was illegal.
X bowed to pressure following deepening controversy and safety concerns from UK regulators.
Ms Smyth welcomed the “corrective action” X had taken.
It comes as Independent MEP Michael McNamara, the new Rapporteur of the European Parliament on a key AI law, said he would use his role to lobby for a bloc-wide ban on so-called “nudification” apps.
Mr McNamara, the Ireland South MEP, is to be responsible for leading negotiations to simplify the European Union’s AI Bill.
As it stands the EU bill does not explicitly ban so-called deepfakes – which are AI-generated images or videos – but does clarify that such content would need to be clearly labelled as AI-generated.
Mr McNamara said he would be proposing that “so-called nudification apps be prohibited across all member states by EU law”.
He told The Irish Times he believed existing legislation did not go far enough.
Mr McNamara said it was not clear if generating the images with AI was prohibited.
“At present the law is far from clear. Whereas the online dissemination of such images may be unlawful, their creation is not,” he said.