JAKARTA: Indonesia suspended Elon Musk&#39;s AI chatbot Grok on Saturday over concerns about AI-generated pornographic content, the country&#39;s communication and digital affairs minister said.&nbsp;Grok has faced a global backlash after it emerged that its image creation feature allowed users to sexualize pictures of women and children using simple text prompts.&nbsp;Indonesia is the first country to deny all access to the tool, which has been restricted to paying subscribers elsewhere following the backlash.&nbsp;&quot;In order to protect women, children, and the public from the risks of fake pornographic content generated using the artificial intelligence technology, the government has temporarily blocked access to the Grok application,&quot; Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement.&nbsp;&quot;The government views non-consensual deep fake practices as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the security of citizens in the digital space.&quot;&nbsp;The ministry has also summoned representatives from the social media platform X to seek clarification on the issue.&nbsp;According to AFP journalists in Jakarta, the Grok X account was still active and replying to queries, including in Bahasa Indonesia, on Saturday evening.&nbsp;Musk-owned startup xAI, which developed Grok, was not immediately available for comment.&nbsp;European officials and tech campaigners slammed the move to limit Grok&#39;s features to paying subscribers, saying it failed to address concerns about sexually explicit deep fake content.&nbsp;Musk said last week in response to a post about the explicit images that anyone using Grok to &quot;make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.&quot;

Artificial Intelligence

Indonesia has blocked Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok over concerns it enables pornographic deepfake content involving women and children. The government called it a human rights violation and has summoned platform X for clarification.

Indonesia suspends Musk's Grok AI over pornographic content: Minister

LONDON: A decision by Elon Musk&#39;s AI chatbot Grok to limit its image creation tool to paid subscribers, amid an outcry over its use for sexualised deepfakes, was &quot;insulting&quot; to victims, the British prime minister&#39;s office said Friday.&nbsp;&quot;That simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service ... It&#39;s not a solution. In fact, it&#39;s insulting the victims of misogyny and sexual violence,&quot; Prime Minister Keir Starmer&#39;s spokesperson said.

The UK Prime Minister’s office condemned Grok’s move to restrict image generation to paid users, saying it fails to stop unlawful sexualised deepfakes and insults victims of misogyny and sexual violence.

Limited changes to Grok AI image creation 'insulting' to victims

WASHINGTON: Elon Musk&#39;s AI tool Grok faced growing international backlash on Monday for generating sexualized deepfakes of women and minors, with the European Union joining the condemnation and Britain warning of an investigation. Complaints of abuse flooded the internet after the recent rollout of an &#39;edit image&#39; button on Grok, which enabled users to alter online images with prompts such as &quot;put her in a bikini&quot; or &quot;remove her clothes.&quot; The digital undressing spree, which follows growing concerns among tech campaigners over proliferating AI &quot;nudify&quot; apps, prompted swift probes or calls for remedial action from countries including France, India, and Malaysia. The European Commission, which acts as the EU&#39;s digital watchdog, joined the chorus on Monday, saying it was &quot;very seriously looking&quot; into the complaints about Grok, developed by Musk&#39;s startup xAI and integrated into his social media platform X. &quot;Grok is now offering a &#39;spicy mode&#39; showing explicit sexual content with some output generated with childlike images. This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling,&quot; said EU digital affairs spokesman Thomas Regnier. &quot;This has no place in Europe.&quot; The UK&#39;s media regulator Ofcom said it had made &quot;urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK.&quot; Depending on the reply, Ofcom will then &quot;determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation.&quot; &#39;Horrifying&#39;Malaysia-based lawyer Azira Aziz expressed horror after a user, apparently in the Philippines, prompted Grok to change her &quot;profile picture to a bikini.&quot; &quot;Innocent and playful use of AI, like putting on sunglasses on public figures, is fine,&quot; Aziz told AFP. &quot;But gender-based violence weaponizing AI against non-consenting women and children must be firmly opposed,&quot; she added, calling on users to report violations to X and Malaysian authorities. Other X users directly implored Musk to take action against apparent pedophiles, &quot;asking grok to put bikinis on children.&quot; &quot;Grok is now undressing photos of me as a child,&quot; Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk&#39;s children, wrote on X. &quot;This is objectively horrifying, illegal.&quot; When reached by AFP for comment, xAI replied with a terse, automated response: &quot;Legacy Media Lies.&quot; Amid the online firestorm, Grok sought to assure users on Friday that it was scrambling to fix flaws in the tool. &quot;We&#39;ve identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them,&quot; Grok said on X. &quot;CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) is illegal and prohibited.&quot; Separately last week, Grok posted an apology for generating and sharing &quot;an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user&#39;s prompt.&quot; &nbsp;&#39;Grossly offensive&#39;&nbsp;The flurry of reactions came after the public prosecutor&#39;s office in Paris last week expanded an investigation into X to include new accusations that Grok was being used for generating and disseminating child pornography. The initial investigation against X was opened in July following reports that the platform&#39;s algorithm was being manipulated for foreign interference. On Friday, Indian authorities directed X to remove the sexualized content, clamp down on offending users, and submit an &quot;Action Taken Report&quot; within 72 hours, or face legal consequences, local media reported. The deadline lapsed on Monday, but so far, there was no update on whether X responded. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission also voiced &quot;serious concern&quot; at the weekend over public complaints about the &quot;indecent, grossly offensive&quot; content across X. It added that it was investigating the violations and will summon X&#39;s representatives. The criticism adds to growing scrutiny of Grok, which has faced criticism for churning out misinformation about recent crises such as the war in Gaza, the India-Pakistan conflict, and a deadly shooting in Australia.

This photograph, taken on January 13, 2025, in Toulouse shows screens displaying the logo of Grok (AFP)

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Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok faces global backlash for generating sexualized deepfakes of women and minors. The EU, UK, India, France, and Malaysia call for investigations, while xAI promises urgent fixes to safeguard users.

Articles tagged with "Grok"

Indonesia suspends Musk's Grok AI over pornographic content: Minister

Limited changes to Grok AI image creation 'insulting' to victims

'Remove her clothes': Global backlash over Grok sexualized images