PH seeks to block AI chatbot Grok due to explicit deepfakes

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While Grok's footprint in the Philippines is small, the process of blocking the AI chatbot would still take coordination with internet service providers, DICT Secretary Henry Aguda says

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine government is seeking to block AI chatbot Grok in the Philippines due to its ability to create sexually explicit or otherwise revealing deepfakes of people.

In a press briefing on Thursday, January 15, Department of Information and Communications Technology Secretary Henry Aguda said the “[DICT’s Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center] is now working together with the [National Telecommunications Commission] to do the blocking of that one,” citing Grok as a vector for online sexual abuse and exploitation of children or OSAEC.

Aguda added that Grok’s footprint in the country was small compared to other chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude, but the process of blocking Grok would still take coordination with internet service providers, as it is not something done automatically using a single button press.

Grok under scrutiny

Elon Musk’s social media platform X, its artificial intelligence arm xAI, and its AI chatbot Grok are under scrutiny from governments, tech watchdogs, and interest groups seeking accountability for Grok’s responses to prompts requesting it remove or create more revealing clothing on images of people.

In the United States, three Democratic senators have called on Apple and Google to remove X and Grok from their respective app stores, while Malaysia and Indonesia have already banned Grok over the explicit content. Authorities in Europe and the United Kingdom have also announced investigations into Grok.

Musk ‘not aware of any naked underage images’ made by Grok

Musk, in a post on X on Wednesday, January 14, said he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.”

“Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images, it does so only according to user requests. When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state.”

Musk, in his statement, added that there may be instances of “adversarial hacking of Grok prompts,” which he said may do “something unexpected.”

“If that happens, we fix the bug immediately,” he added.

– Rappler.com