Malaysia and Indonesia blocked access to Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok over the weekend due to concerns that the tool was being used to generate nonconsensual, sexually explicit content.
Malaysian regulators ordered temporary restrictions be placed on the chatbot from xAI on Sunday following "repeated failures by X Corp" to address risks associated with the AI tool.
The move came just one day after Indonesia stepped in to pause access to Grok over similar concerns and summoned X officials on the matter, according to CNBC's translation of the statement.
The Southeast Asian countries' actions come after it was discovered that xAI's Grok enabled users to easily generate and share images online that included nonconsensual explicit images and child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Musk's company had recently updated its Grok Imagine features, enabling easier image generation from text-based prompts on the chatbot, which is integrated with Musk's social media platform X, giving it a wide reach.
Amid escalating concerns over Grok's content moderation policy, xAI announced it would limit image generation and editing features to paying subscribers, in an effort to patch safeguard gaps that permitted sexualized outputs.
Musk, responding on X, has also asserted that users creating illegal content via Grok would face consequences equivalent to uploading such material directly to the social media platform.
CNBC attempted to reach xAI for comment regarding the developments over the weekend. A press email for the company returned an automatic message that read "Legacy Media Lies."