EU nations on Friday backed a ban on AI systems generating sexualised deepfakes, after an outcry over such images produced by Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok.
European ambassadors agreed to prohibit “practices regarding the generation of non-consensual sexual and intimate content or child sexual abuse material”, a spokesperson for Cyprus, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said.
EU member states and the European Parliament introduced the ban as part of the proposals to amend the bloc’s comprehensive rules on AI.
EU lawmakers are set to approve the ban during a vote by committees Wednesday.
“It’s not just about individual scandals like Grok. It’s about how much power we are willing to give AI to degrade people,” EU lawmaker Sergey Lagodinsky, one of several members of the parliament pushing for the ban, said.
X, the platform on which Grok is available, in January said it had “zero tolerance” for sexualised deepfakes of children and women, and implemented measures it said would stop such image creation after the global outrage.
The European Commission, the bloc’s digital watchdog, in January kickstarted an investigation into Grok under the EU’s online content rules.
The ban will become law after negotiations on a final text including the changes to the AI rulebook between the EU parliament and member states.
Ambassadors on Friday also approved a fixed timeline for the delayed application of high-risk AI rules: December 2027 for stand-alone high-risk AI systems and August 2028 for high-risk AI systems embedded in products.
Rules on high-risk AI are due to come into effect in August 2026 and August 2027 unless the delay becomes law.
