Data protection authorities from 61 countries published a statement Monday warning organizations developing and using AI content generation systems to safeguard against abuses involving the depiction of real people. The joint statement comes on the heels of the Grok AI chatbot creating and sharing millions of images of “nudified” real people. On January 15, the company’s owner Elon Musk responded to weeks of worldwide anger by announcing that social media platform X would block Grok from creating the images. On Thursday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced tech companies would be required to remove intimate images shared without consent within 48 hours or face fines of up to 10% of their “qualifying” global revenue as well as the potential for their service to be blocked in the country. The 61 regulators said their joint statement comes in response to “serious concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) systems that generate realistic images and videos depicting identifiable individuals without their knowledge and consent.” In addition to nonconsensual intimate imagery, the regulators warned that safeguards must be established to block “defamatory depictions,” citing the potential for AI to contribute to cyber bullying and child exploitation. The coalition also reminded organizations that the creation of nonconsensual intimate imagery is illegal in many countries. The letter was signed by a large number of European countries, as well as Canada, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Argentina and Peru. The U.S. did not sign. “The harms arising from non-consensual generation of intimate, defamatory, or otherwise harmful content depicting real individuals are significant and call for urgent regulatory attention,” the joint statement said. “We call on organizations to engage proactively with regulators, implement robust safeguards from the outset, and ensure that technological advancement does not come at the expense of privacy, dignity, safety, and other fundamental rights - particularly for the most vulnerable of our global society.”
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