What happened
In January, AI-generated sexualised images of Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister, Ebba Busch, circulated on X, created using Elon Musk's Grok tool. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned the incident as "sexualised violence". The European Commission is investigating potential breaches of its Digital Services Act. Concurrently, the UK government moved to extend its Online Safety Act to include AI chatbots, with Sir Keir Starmer warning platforms against illegal content.
Why it matters
The proliferation of AI-generated sexualised imagery intensifies online abuse against women in public roles, threatening to reverse progress on gender equality in leadership. AI models, including Grok, Midjourney, and Stability, can be adapted to create such content; 96% of deepfake videos are pornographic and exclusively target women. This mechanism, coupled with the open-source nature of many AI systems, complicates regulatory efforts and necessitates stronger platform accountability.
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