Malaysia has joined France and India in threatening action against Elon Musk’s Grok after the AI chatbot created sexualised images of women and children on X.
Grok, X’s built-in AI chatbot, has been digitally stripping down women and children to bikinis in response to user prompts.
The digital undressing spree appears to have kicked off over the past couple of days, according to completed clothes-removal requests posted by Grok and complaints from users.
Complaints of abuse first surfaced on X in late December after Grok rolled out an “edit image” button, allowing users to modify any image on the platform.
Now, the flood of nearly nude images of real people has rung alarm bells globally.
Malaysian authorities said over the weekend they had launched an investigation after complaints that Grok was being used to manipulate images of women and minors into indecent or otherwise harmful content.
The Communications and Multimedia Commission warned that creating or transmitting such harmful content was an offense under Malaysian law. It said the media watchdog would investigate X users who allegedly violated the law and summon representatives from the company.
“While X is not presently a licensed service provider, it has the duty to prevent dissemination of harmful content on its platform,” it said.
Besides stripping them down into bikinis, the chatbot also produced altered images of Malaysian women without their headscarves, according to New Straits Times.
Mr Musk appeared to poke fun at the controversy earlier on Friday, posting laugh-cry emojis in response to AI edits of famous people, including himself, in bikinis.
When one X user said their social media feed resembled a bar packed with bikini-clad women, Mr Musk replied, in part, with another laugh-cry emoji.
As the backlash grew, however, Musk said on Sunday that the platform was taking action against illegal content, including posts related to children, by removing it and permanently suspending accounts.
“Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” he said in a post.
Authorities in India on Friday wrote to X, ordering a comprehensive review of the AI chatbot to ensure it did not generate content containing “nudity, sexualisation, sexually explicit or otherwise unlawful content”.
Delhi directed the platform to submit a report on corrective action taken to the electronics and information technology ministry within 72 hours, warning that failure to comply could invite action under criminal and IT laws.
The government also said it could consider tighter regulation of social media platforms over inappropriate AI-generated content.
France also accused Grok of generating “clearly illegal” sexual content on X without people’s consent, adding that Grok-created images potentially violated the EU’s Digital Services Act.
The public prosecutor’s office in Paris meanwhile expanded an investigation into X to include new accusations that Grok was being used for generating and disseminating child abuse content.
The investigation into X was first launched in July after reports said the platform’s algorithm was being manipulated to enable foreign interference.
Dani Pinter, chief legal officer and director of the Law Center for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said X had failed to pull abusive images from its AI training material.
“This was an entirely predictable and avoidable atrocity,” Mr Pinter told Reuters.
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