Musk’s Grok AI blocked in Indonesia, Malaysia over sexual images

[JAKARTA] Indonesia and Malaysia restricted access to Elon Musk’s Grok AI over the weekend, becoming the first countries to ban the artificial intelligence (AI) system over its generation of sexual content.

Indonesia’s Communications and Digital Affairs Ministry is imposing a temporary ban on Grok “to protect women, children, and the entire community from the risk of fake pornographic content generated using artificial intelligence technology”, according to a statement issued on Saturday (Jan 10). The ministry has asked platform X to immediately provide clarification regarding the matter, it said.

“The government views non-consensual deepfake sexual practices as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and national security in the digital space,” Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said in the statement.

On Sunday, Malaysia’s Internet regulator also said that it’s limiting access to Grok until effective safeguards are implemented. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission added that it issued notices to X and xAI to prevent AI-generated content that may contravene Malaysian law, but the company’s responses failed to address inherent risks posed by the AI tool.

The move by the South-east Asian nations came as Musk’s xAI, which owns Grok, decided on Friday to restrict the image-generation feature for most users on the X social media platform after the AI tool drew widespread condemnation for generating undressed images of women and children. Users now need a paid subscription to generate and edit images. Those features were initially introduced on X for free with daily limits.

But several regulators around the globe, including in the UK, have criticised the move by xAI as insufficient. The standalone Grok app, which operates separately from the social network, still allows users to generate pictures without subscribing.

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India’s government, which had earlier also voiced concern over the AI tool’s feature, has received assurances from X that it will comply with local laws regarding the Grok AI obscene content issue, the Press Trust of India said on Sunday, citing unidentified government sources. Around 3,500 pieces of content have been blocked and over 600 accounts deleted, according to the report.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” Grok posted on the X platform about the Indonesian block. “We are working to resolve this issue.” BLOOMBERG