"Dark turn" - Louth parents encouraged to report Grok AI generated photos

Sinn Féin councillor for Dundalk Sionainn McCann has encouraged Louth parents to report AI deep fakes of nudity by Grok AI. 

Cllr McCann said parents are "deeply concerned at the dark turn of the social media platform X". The platform has been criticised due to its ability to produce non-consensual images of women and children. 

Taoiseach Micheál Martin is set to meet with the Attorney General to discuss the matter which he described as "very grave and very serious". 

Cllr McCann said people are using AI tools on a more regular basis and urged caution to parents and children about the dangers of the technology.

"If your child comes to you with this, please report it immediately until such times as the government forces X to disable the nudification functionality in its AI tools, our children are vulnerable," she said. 

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She criticised Elon Musk, owner of X for the platform's response. The platform formerly known as Twitter, had originally said it had restricted its image generation to paid subscribers. 

However, late on Wednesday night X announced Grok will no longer be able to generate photos of real people in revealing clothing. Yet, there have been reports that users are still able to create sexualised content from photographs of fully clothed, real women.

Cllr McCann said this form of content is "domestic, sexual and gender-based violence on a whole new scale."

"Women in particular who are already suffering at the hands of violent
male partners or ex-partners are fearful of this new level of violence.”

Minister with responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Niamh Smyth said she will meet with X, and accused the platform of showing "total disregard" to the Irish Government and to "many European states". 

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