KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and non-consensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse.

Several countries have pushed back publicly against the tool that allows users to alter online images to remove the subjects' clothes.

The restriction comes as regulators worldwide threaten enforcement action over Grok's generation of thousands of non-consensual deepfakes per hour.