'X is just toxic': Helen McEntee calls for ban on platform's AI tool Grok over sexually explicit images

Foreign affairs minister Helen McEntee is the first senior Cabinet member to call for the banning of X’s AI chatbot.

Grok should be banned due to its ability to create sexually explicit images of women and children, Helen McEntee has said.

The foreign affairs minister is the first senior Cabinet member to call for the banning of X’s AI chatbot. Her comments came as gardaí confirmed they are currently investigating 200 child sexual abuse images generated by Grok.

In recent weeks. Grok has been used to generate explicit images of women and children through what’s described as a nudification function.

It has been used to remove clothing from pictures published on the site.

“This is one of the single biggest challenges that we are facing and it’s something we don’t talk about enough," said Ms McEntee adding the Government and EU need to "explore every option” to rein in social media firms like X.

I think we need, collectively, to be stronger in pushing back against social media companies and not letting this type of technology take hold and cause the damage that it can.

The foreign affairs minister said she mainly uses X as a communication tool, but does not engage with the site beyond that.

“I don’t comment, I don’t respond on it… I mean, social media is a really great way of being able to communicate, to get your message across.

“But I think in particular X, it is just toxic in my own view of it.”

At the Oireachtas Media committee, Detective Chief Superintendent Barry Walsh of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau told the Oireachtas Media Committee there have been 200 reports to date received by gardaí, which “are being investigated involving content of child sexual abuse material or indicative of CSAM”.

He said it now had to be shown the images in question were criminal in nature before further investigation could take place.

“That may lead to the execution of warrants,” he said, adding any investigation may not be into X itself, but into the images which have been shared on the platform.