Norwegian Social Democrats Want to Ban AI Service

In the UK, the government is threatening to block access to X due to its increasingly advanced AI tool Grok. A ban sounds like a good idea, think the Norwegian Social Democrats as well.

This week, Samnytt reported that the British government, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is launching a frontal attack on X. They want the platform to lose the ‘right to self-regulate’ or, in the worst case, to be blocked completely.

It is after Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok, which is integrated into an X account, has become increasingly advanced and can create more sophisticated images that the British government has started to consider how to deal with the platform.

At the same time, some are questioning why British authorities are focusing so much on X, since the same kinds of images can also be created with other AI tools, and they are speculating whether this has to do with Elon Musk’s political views.

A ban is a proposal that has also gained support in Norway, where the Social Democrats would prefer to see access to Grok blocked. They refer to already existing bans in Malaysia and Indonesia. Even the EU, which has previously clashed with Elon Musk and X/Twitter, is investigating Grok.

“When Elon Musk’s tool is used to spread offensive material, we must be very clear that this does not belong in Norway,” says Labour Party parliamentarian Hashim Abdi to Nettavisen.

“Other countries have taken the lead and said stop, and I think Norway must do the same. We cannot sit passively while AI tools are launched that normalize abuse against children.”

Can Be Addressed

At the end of December, a separate photo editing function in Grok was launched, which is an integrated part of the X platform. It later emerged that some users were employing the feature to generate images of lightly dressed and naked women and children, as well as so-called deepfakes.

xAI, the company behind Grok, said in early January that they are working to address issues in their AI tool.