Niamh Smyth says ‘she does not trust X’
By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association
The minister with responsibility for artificial intelligence (AI) has said she does not trust X following reports that sexualised images of adults and child abuse material were generated through the Grok AI tool and disseminated on the platform.
Niamh Smyth told the Committee on Artificial Intelligence that the company’s perspective on the controversy was “skewed”, because the language it used around “bad actors” and “user manipulation” of the Grok AI tool “doesn’t sit well with me”.
She said: “I understand what that means. However, this is a huge company with huge financial resources behind it that has the design team and the capability to design this kind of technology in the first place.
“We have very clear laws here in Ireland, and we have laws under the Digital Services Act too that guardrails, and due diligence should be in place with any technology that is going to affect European citizens.”
She added: “My focus and emphasis would be on X and Grok itself, not so much the users.
“The users, of course, the gardai will be taking care of that.”
Ms Smyth met with the company earlier this month, and afterwards said: “X informed me that corrective actions have now been implemented and that Grok, as integrated on the X platform, has been disabled from removing or reducing clothing on individuals worldwide.”
Committee member and People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy questioned the validity of this statement.
He asked Ms Smyth if she checked it was true that the functionality had been disabled worldwide.
She said: “Well I didn’t because I’ve disabled my own account, but I have asked the question, and I’ve been told that it has been disabled.”
However, Mr Murphy outlined how someone in his parliamentary office had just used the tool to generate an undressed picture of him through Grok on X, with his consent.
He said: “I’ll spare you the image – but its not true, they lied to you. What are you going to do about it?”
He added: “X in their statement did say something different to what they seem to have told you. X in their statement said, we now geoblock the ability of all users to generate images of real people in bikinis, underwear and similar attire via the Grok account, and in Grok in X, in those jurisdictions – whereas they told you it was worldwide.
“They haven’t done it worldwide – so if you try and access it now in Ireland without using a VPN, you can’t do it through X – but if you put a VPN to Paris, for example, you can still create these images.”
Asked if she had been misled, Ms Smyth said it was her understanding that the capability on X had been disabled.
Ms Smyth said media regulator Coimisiun na Mean was conducting its own investigation to work in “close collaboration” with the European Commission probe into X, but added that she did not know if this was criminal in nature.
Committee chairman Malcolm Byrne told the minister, who previously worked with Ms Smyth when she chaired the media committee, that he did not trust X.
He said: “You know when you were chaired the Media Committee, they were regularly tried to be dragged before the committee.
“At least with the other platforms – whatever the criticisms were – they came before the committees, they engaged. I just don’t trust X.”
Asked if she trusted X, she replied: “Not at the moment, particularly after what Deputy Murphy has announced here this morning.”
Pressed by Mr Murphy on what she intended to do, Ms Smyth said: “Believe you, me – I will take action.”
However, the People Before Profit TD later said he had “no confidence” this would happen, adding: “Since this scandal was revealed, the Government has been determined to distract and divert from taking meaningful action against X/Grok.”
