{"id":241519,"date":"2026-01-12T20:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T20:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/241519\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T20:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T20:08:16","slug":"grok-images-of-children-are-probably-not-prosecutable-says-child-protection-expert-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/241519\/","title":{"rendered":"Grok images of children are probably not prosecutable, says child protection expert \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNudified\u201d images of children created by Elon Musk<\/a>\u2019s Grok AI<\/a> are probably not prosecutable as child sex abuse imagery, one of the country\u2019s leading experts on online child abuse has said.<\/p>\n

Mick Moran, who spent 34 years as a garda<\/a> primarily involved in investigating child abuse material, said that, \u201claw or no law\u201d, there is no reason for a programme such as Grok to be able to generate images of people without clothes on.<\/p>\n

However, he said the images being produced by Grok probably do not meet the definition of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998.<\/p>\n

Last month Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot that is based on the social network X, was given the ability to alter images of people, including children, to remove their clothing.<\/p>\n

This has led to accusations that the platform is enabling paedophilia and is producing CSAM and non-consensual intimate images on an industrial scale.<\/p>\n

Genevieve Oh, a social media researcher, has estimated the AI is creating 6,700 sexually suggestive images an hour. A number of Ministers and high-profile politicians have deleted their X accounts in response and there have been calls for Mr Musk\u2019s company to be investigated by garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

\"MickMick Moran, a former garda who is chief executive of Hotline, a Government- and industry-funded company that removes instances of child sexual abuse material on the internet. Photo: Bryan O\u2019Brien \/ The Irish Times<\/p>\n

Mr Moran, who is the chief executive of Hotline, a Government- and industry-funded company that removes instances of CSAM on the internet, pointed to the definition of \u201cchild pornography\u201d under section 2 the 1998 Act.<\/p>\n

This defines illegal material as representations of children \u201cengaged in explicit sexual activity\u201d, children witnessing such activity, or material \u201cwhose dominant characteristic is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of the genital or anal region of a child\u201d.<\/p>\n

The images being generated by Grok do not meet this definition from a legal perspective, Mr Moran said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m talking about CSAM, I\u2019m talking about child pornography as defined under section 2 of the Act,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it is a picture of a child in underwear, under the law it is not CSAM. There must be a sexual aspect or a focus on the genital areas,\u201d said Mr Moran, who during his career with the Garda was seconded to Interpol for 11 years where he helped lead child protection efforts internationally.<\/p>\n

This is the case even if the images are generated by child abusers for a sexual purpose, he said.<\/p>\n

The law is drafted in such a way as not to criminalise \u201cregular family photographs\u201d that may feature children in a state of undress, he said.<\/p>\n

He said none of the mainstream AI platforms will generate CSAM as its defined under Irish law.<\/p>\n

However, Mr Moran said \u201cnudified\u201d images created by Grok without the subject\u2019s consent may form part of a crime under the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020.<\/p>\n

The Act, commonly known as Coco\u2019s law<\/a>, criminalises the sharing of non-consensual intimate images \u201cwith intent to do harm\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Moran said, regardless of the current law, he sees \u201cno legitimate reason\u201d for \u201cnudification technology\u201d. <\/p>\n

The former garda also warned of the dangers of people using their own AI tools to convert images of children into sexually explicit material for their own use or onward distribution.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Elon Musk responds as UK threatens fines and possible ban for X over Grok\u2019s AI-created imagesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Custom AI tools, with similar capabilities to Grok and other mainstream platforms, are freely available for download, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re essentially a machine which will produce whatever might be inside your head. It\u2019s like the ever-lasting bottle of Guinness for an alcoholic.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Mark O’Connell: \u2018Hey @Grok put a bikini on her\u2019: what more could an incel want?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties and Digital Rights Ireland have written to Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly urging him to open an investigation into Grok. <\/p>\n

It is not clear whether such an investigation is under way. However, in a statement, the Garda urged anyone who encounters CSAM online or is a victim of non-consensual intimate image sharing to make a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNudified\u201d images of children created by Elon Musk\u2019s Grok AI are probably not prosecutable as child sex abuse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,218,72,605,4069,61,60,43927,61415],"class_list":["post-241519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-business","tag-elon-musk","tag-grok","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-council-for-civil-liberties","tag-justin-kelly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}