THE TAOISEACH, TÁNAISTE, and a number of other Cabinet figures are to meet tomorrow to discuss laws concerning sexual harassment imagery in the wake of controversy over AI tool Grok.

Minister of State with responsibility for AI Niamh Smyth and Attorney General Rossa Fanning will also attend the meeting.

Last month, Grok, which is available as a standalone app but is most prominently used on Elon Musk’s social media site X, began generating non-consensual sexual imagery at the behest of users. Some of this imagery included the digital “undressing” of children.

Across Europe, politicians took stands against the tool and called on X and Musk to disable the feature that allows for the creation of such imagery. In Ireland, outcry from government figures was slightly more subdued.

Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan deleted his X account after arriving in some hot water when he said it was the users rather than X that was behind the generated imagery, while a number of other senior politicians deleted or disabled their accounts in response to the controversy.

Some opposition figures have called for X to be banned entirely. Earlier this week, representatives for X refused to appear before an Oireachtas Media Committee in respect of the issue.

Speaking today on RTÉ’s This Week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin denied that Government was treating X with “kid gloves” over the issue due to its European headquarters being based in Dublin.

“No, I don’t accept that. I think that’s wrong. I mean, if you look at technology companies generally, our own data protection office has levied billions of Euro fines on technology companies in this country. So our independent enforcement agencies have not in any way been inhibited from doing that, and they have done that,” he said.

He said he would be meeting with Tánaiste Simon Harris, Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan, Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan, AI Minister Niamh Smyth, and the Attorney General tomorrow to review the laws in place regarding AI-generated non-consensual sexual imagery.

Martin cautioned that he believes there is already robust legislation in place, both domestically and on an EU level, in terms of child sexual abuse imagery.

“[The meeting is] just to look at all the existing laws – there are issues around adult material,” he said.

Although the 2020 Coco’s Law is “quite comprehensive”, “there may be areas there that we could strengthen”, the Taoiseach continued.

“Bear in mind also that X is a very, very large platform as defined within the European Union legal framework, and so the European Commission is ultimately responsible for such very large platforms.

“I do anticipate action from the European Commission in respect of this. Already, the gardaí have indicated about 200 complaints have come in. They are pursuing it also in respect of Irish law.

“It’s a very serious situation, but we do have a fairly significant, layered framework of legal enforcement that’s open to us, open to the European Union, to pursue.”

Earlier this week, X said that it would block Grok from altering images of real people to show them in “revealing clothing” in places where it is illegal.

At the time of publication, the tool remains capable of doing so in Ireland.