Malaysia suspends Grok access amid global backlash on Musk’s AI

Workers install lighting on an ‘X’ sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in downtown San Francisco in 2023. Photo: AP

Malaysia suspended access to Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok over AI-generated pornographic content, the country’s tech regulator said on Sunday.

The decision follows global backlash after it emerged that Grok’s image creation feature allowed users to sexualise pictures of women and children using simple text prompts.

On Saturday, Indonesia became the first country to deny all access to the tool, which has been restricted to paying subscribers elsewhere.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said in a statement it had “directed a temporary restriction on access to the Grok artificial intelligence for users in Malaysia” with immediate effect.

When a reporter in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur fed Grok prompts on Sunday, there was no response.

“This action follows repeated misuse of Grok to generate obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive and non-consensual manipulated images,” the regulator said.

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