In January, Sweden woke up one morning to find one of its most senior politicians digitally undressed. AI-generated images of Ebba Busch, the Nordic country’s deputy prime minister, began circulating on X after users exploited Elon Musk’s Grok tool to create sexualised versions of publicly available photographs of the 39-year old politician.
The fightback was swift. Busch, leader of the centre-right Christian Democrats, speaking in a video posted to the same platform that pictured her in a bikini, said “the world needs fewer assholes,” and urged users of AI to think about how they use it and what they share.
Swedish politicians, who often pride themselves as a model of gender equality, condemned the episode and warned how easily new technology can be turned against women in public office. Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson called the scandal “distasteful, unacceptable, offensive” and “a form of sexualised violence”.
Elsewhere, the European Commission said it was examining potential breaches of its Digital Services Act, and the EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen called the episode a “violent, unacceptable form of degradation”.
Ebba Busch, deputy prime minister of Sweden © Jorg Carstensen/dpa/Alamy Live News
