Artificial intelligence is playing a bigger role in society today. While it has some benefits, I do not always see artificial intelligence as a force for good and I will give an example. South Dublin County Council has a system in place, and I know Deputies Shane Moynihan and Gogarty are well used to using it, whereby elected representatives can contact South Dublin County Council on behalf of constituents and get a written response which we are able to send to our constituents. Before Christmas I noticed some very unusual language in some of the responses I was getting. I contacted South Dublin County Council and asked whether it was using AI to generate the responses. The response I got was that it has 25 staff members with access to AI and they use it to generate content, including responses to elected members. The council stated it is committed to maintaining human oversight of these responses but I have concerns. I have had to contact the council numerous times about some of the responses I have received which did not make sense. I have been using the system since 2016 when I was first elected to South Dublin County Council. I know when I am getting a computerised response that does not make any sense. We cannot send them out to constituents. Constituents in Dublin Mid-West cannot meet a council official face to face since the civic offices in Clondalkin were closed to the public. When they make a phone call they get an automated message and they cannot get a human at the end of the phone. While AI has its benefits, we must not lose human contact. Constituents and people need this human contact as they go on. People have spoken about Grok on Twitter being used to make sexual images of children and women. The Minister of State has condemned it and everybody in the House would condemn it because it is absolutely deplorable. It needs to be tackled with the full weight of the law. If the law is not strong enough, it is up to us to make it stronger. I have heard horrendous stories of women who have had sexual images made on Grok without their consent. Earlier this year, and it is at the lower end and I will not compare it, an image of me was AI generated. It was at the lower end of the scale but it did involve the removal of some items of clothing. I reported it to X and the first response I got was that it did not go against its community standards. On 8 January I received another response because the account was reported by numerous people on X. This response, after several complaints, stated it did break X's abusive behaviour rule and the account is now locked. It is locked but it is not banned despite several complaints. The bigger issue is whose account was locked. It is an anonymous account. There is no accountability for people with anonymous accounts and this needs to be tackled. I have no problem with people having a different opinion and having a go at me over my political opinion. That is fine but at least own it and do not hide behind an anonymous account.

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