A very good thing.....

EU set to ban AI nudification apps in wake of Grok scandal

The ban, laid out in proposals seen by POLITICO, could kick in this summer.

By Pieter Haeck

 Artificial intelligence systems that can generate sexualized deepfakes of real people would be banned in the EU under proposals seen by POLITICO.

The push comes after X’s AI tool Grok allowed users to generate millions of images of real people in bikinis or fully nude, including images of children.

A proposal set to be approved by EU ambassadors on Friday would make it illegal to market in Europe any artificial intelligence system that can generate non-consensual sexualized videos, images or audio files involving real people.

European Parliament lawmakers backed a ban in separate talks on Wednesday.

The plans — which could kick in as early as this summer after negotiations between EU countries and the Parliament — raise questions about the future of a host of apps that allow users to create fake nude images of people from real-life pictures, including Elon Musk’s tool.

The EU is already looking into whether X properly mitigated the risks of integrating Grok into its platform to prevent harm from sexually explicit images.

“This is not only about Grok,” said German Greens Member of Parliament Sergey Lagodinsky, one of multiple lawmakers who backed a ban. “It is about how much power we are willing to give AI to degrade people.”

Pulling the trigger

The image-generating capabilities of Grok went viral at the end of 2025.

The chatbot may have generated as many as 3 million non-consensual sexual images and 20,000 child sexual abuse images in the 11 days before changes were made to stop the spread of such photos, an estimate by civil society found.

The platform took steps to restrict the feature on Jan. 9 and again on Jan. 14. Announcing those changes, X said: “We remain committed to making X a safe platform for everyone and continue to have zero tolerance for any forms of child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and unwanted sexual content.”

The EU is investigating whether these steps were sufficient.

Dozens of lawmakers first called for a ban on AI nudification apps and tools in mid-January. EU legislators now intend to make that a reality through a plan to amend the EU’s AI rulebook.

Presented by the European Commission in November, the proposal was originally intended to scale back restrictions on artificial intelligence companies and reduce the regulatory burden.

That changed after the discovery that Grok users were undressing women and children, putting the issue top of mind among EU legislators and surpassing items originally seen as sensitive, including plans to delay restrictions on high-risk artificial intelligence.

Cyprus, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU and is charged with finalizing a common position among EU countries, for weeks did not include a ban on AI nudification systems in several rounds of drafting.

That changed Tuesday when the Cypriots floated a near-final text that backs a ban on AI systems that can generate images, video or audio “of an identifiable natural person's intimate parts or of an identifiable natural person engaged in sexually explicit activities.”

The inclusion of a ban is a win for countries such as Spain that had strongly pushed for it. EU ambassadors are set to greenlight the text on Friday.

European Parliament lawmakers agreed Wednesday to include language to ban an “Al system that alters, manipulates or artificially generates realistic images or videos so as to depict sexually explicit activities or the intimate parts of an identifiable natural person, without that person's consent.”

However, the agreement reached in a political meeting Wednesday notes a ban would not apply to companies “who have put effective safety measures [in place] to prevent the generation of such depictions and to avoid misuse.”

The text is not yet final, with the Parliament’s lead committees set to vote on it March 18.

The Parliament and Council will then meet to agree a final version before a ban becomes law.

On Tuesday the Parliament also called upon the Commission to “investigate measures to protect individuals against the dissemination of manipulated and AI-generated digital image, audio or video content” as part of a separate report on AI and copyright.

“What is maybe a joke for one for 10 seconds, can bring lasting damage to a victim,” said Dutch Greens lawmaker Kim van Sparrentak on Monday. “High time to ban all of these apps.”