India has ordered Elon Musk’s X to make quick technical and procedural modifications to its AI chatbot Grok after customers and lawmakers flagged the era of “obscene” content material, together with AI-altered photos of girls created utilizing the device.
On Friday, India’s IT ministry issued the order directing Musk’s X to take corrective motion on Grok, together with limiting the era of content material involving “nudity, sexualization, sexually specific, or in any other case illegal” materials. The ministry additionally gave the social media platform 72 hours to submit an action-taken report detailing the steps it has taken to forestall the internet hosting or dissemination of content material deemed “obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually specific, pedophilic, or in any other case prohibited beneath regulation.”
The order, reviewed by iinfoai, warned that failure to conform might jeopardize X’s “secure harbor” protections — authorized immunity from legal responsibility for user-generated content material beneath Indian regulation.
India’s transfer follows issues raised by customers who shared examples of Grok being prompted to change photos of people — primarily girls — to make them seem like carrying bikinis, prompting a proper criticism from Indian parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi. Individually, latest experiences flagged cases wherein the AI chatbot generated sexualized photos involving minors, a difficulty X acknowledged earlier on Friday was brought on by lapses in safeguards. These photos had been later taken down.
Nevertheless, photos generated utilizing Grok that made girls seem like carrying bikinis via AI alteration remained accessible on X on the time of publication, iinfoai discovered.
The newest order comes days after the Indian IT ministry issued a broader advisory on Monday, which was additionally reviewed by iinfoai, to social media platforms, reminding them that compliance with native legal guidelines governing obscene and sexually specific content material is a prerequisite for retaining authorized immunity from legal responsibility for user-generated materials. The advisory urged corporations to strengthen inner safeguards and warned that failure to take action might invite authorized motion beneath India’s IT and legal legal guidelines.
“It’s reiterated that non-compliance with the above necessities shall be seen critically and should end in strict authorized penalties in opposition to your platform, its accountable officers and the customers on the platform who violate the regulation, with none additional discover,” the order warned.
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The Indian authorities stated noncompliance might result in motion in opposition to X beneath India’s IT regulation and legal statutes.
India, one of many world’s largest digital markets, has emerged as a crucial take a look at case for the way far governments are prepared to go in holding platforms accountable for AI-generated content material. Any tightening of enforcement within the nation might have ripple results for world expertise corporations working throughout a number of jurisdictions.
The order comes as Musk’s X continues to problem features of India’s content material regulation guidelines in courtroom, arguing that federal authorities takedown powers danger overreach, even because the platform has complied with a majority of blocking directives. On the identical time, Grok has been more and more utilized by X customers for real-time fact-checking and commentary on information occasions, making its outputs extra seen — and extra politically delicate — than these of stand-alone AI instruments.
X and xAI didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon the Indian authorities’s order.
