I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Hello to all the activists and supporters in the Gallery this evening as well as those who cannot be here. I thank them for all their support in helping us prepare for this important proposed legislation. Céad míle fáilte. My heart goes out to all those who have been victimised by sexualised AI deepfakes. I know this Bill cannot repair the tremendous harm done to them but I hope it can help prevent future harm. Most of all, gabhaim buíochas le Jackie Fox for supporting this amendment to the law named after her treasured daughter Coco. Today, aptly, is international Safer Internet Day and this year its theme explores the impact of artificial intelligence, a fitting way to honour Coco's memory. Tomorrow's vote on Sinn Féin's Bill will demonstrate whether the Government truly aspires to the zero-tolerance in Ireland of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Most of us have posted pictures of our children or grandchildren on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or the dreaded X. Imagine someone gets their hands on a photo of a kid and via an AI tool digitally strips away their clothes creating a sexual image, all to feed their own revolting fantasies or to sell to the dark web. This is happening now and it is called nudification. No matter how innocuous the image is, it can be turned into child sexual abuse material without the person ever knowing it. When a child image is used in this way, the child is not only victimised but can be traumatised for life. Nearly 40% of children aged eight to 12 use these platforms. The most common age to start using social media is 13. Grok is a generative AI tool from the company owned by the bizarre millionaire, soon to be trillionaire, Elon Musk. Grok's image generation tool was used widely by people to generate explicit sexual content. A simple prompt "undress her" generates these. It generates millions of sexualised images over a very short period. We know over 11 days there were roughly 3 million, 99% of them of women and children. Women experience the Internet differently from men. From cyberbullying and harassment to co-ordinated attacks meant to silence women, the digital world can be especially hard for women. Here on our island women standing for recent elections were bullied and sexualised with AI deepfakes designed to damage reputations and self-esteem. Deepfakes, though untrue, still communicate something of a person's body, behaviour or character. They shape how others see them. Part of the dark motivation is exertion of power over a woman to shame her, to subjugate her and to silence her. Many perpetrators of this intensely misogynistic cyberbullying only find images sexy when they are non-consensual. I want people to think about that; it is so dark and twisted. Our Bill seeks to: explicitly criminalise the creation of sexualised AI deepfakes; increase the statute of limitations for the summary offences to allow victims plenty of time to come forward to An Garda to thoroughly investigate it; and increase the maximum penalties upon conviction to better reflect the heinous nature of these digital crimes. In the week since Grok's nudification functionality was switched on, numerous Government TDs and Ministers have rightly expressed outrage and demanded this issue be taken seriously. Now is the chance to prove ourselves. Let us work together and let us do it.
Sentiment score: -0.01
I thank all those who contributed. I also thank the stakeholders involved. We have come a long way from Bebo. That is a flashback. The Minister mentioned that the Attorney General thinks the existing definition is okay. The stakeholders and victims feel it is not, but that is for us to work out at the committee. We can discuss the matter, listen to people's opinions and come to a conclusion on the matter in a fairly urgent manner. This is urgent; we cannot allow what is happening to continue because it will just multiply. I describe it as being like a virus that gallops through people. In the past few weeks and months, it has galloped through all our little minds in the context of what we are watching or are being subjected to. As has been stated, 99% of the images involved relate to women and children. The core issue here is the violation of the privacy and dignity of women and children by creating sexualised depictions of those who cannot and do not consent. There are Irish people involved in what is happening, but it could take two years for the Garda to even get to look at images that supposedly exist. By the time that happens, victims will have had to put up with, live with and dodge the existence of such images for years. Technology is enabling non-consensual harm. In that context, the burden should not fall on the victims to fight back alone. That is why we are here. Stronger safeguards, clearer laws and responsible and accountable AI design are not optional; they are urgent needs to preserve social cohesion. The rise of misogyny and sexual assault is deeply concerning. We all need to be very concerned about that. Apparently, there has been a 43% increase in sexual offences, according to statistics issued by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre at the weekend. This virus is infecting minds and warping them, especially the minds of our youth because they do not know any different. It is abhorrent and we as leaders must be diligent. We need to stand firm, be proactive, be parents and educate our young people. We are not going to rely on the technology giants, which appear to have a preference for, allegiance to and maybe a love for robots as opposed to humanity. They make them a priority. Their only concern is profit and their moral compasses are largely lost. Ultimately, these mega-corporations must be held to account. We must pass robust legislation that can be used to deal with the task at hand. We need to stand together. It is imperative that we do so because we all agree that it needs fixing and fixing fast. We must stand up to these tech giants that are undermining democracies and humanity worldwide. They are also undermining how we are with each other worldwide. There is a lot of hate out there and a lot of toxic nastiness that, as one of my colleagues said, would make you want to vomit at times. I voice my solidarity again with all those people in the Public Gallery who have worked really hard and who are not going to stop. They are going to gallop through this virus and we are going to stop it whatever way we can. I look forward to engaging with the committee on this.
Sentiment score: -0.01