MANILA: The owner and developer of the artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has formally reached out to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), proposing corrective measures as the government weighs blocking the tool over concerns about sexually explicit deepfakes.
The DICT confirmed “that X, the platform owner of Grok, has formally reached out to DICT Secretary Henry Aguda and is proposing corrective measures and stronger safeguards, especially for the protection of women and children.”
“The government expects concrete, enforceable actions—not just assurances—to ensure AI technologies are never used to enable abuse, exploitation, or harm,” the agency said.
Aguda on Thursday (Jan 15) said that authorities were already working on blocking Grok in the Philippines due to its ability to generate sexually explicit content.
“In line with the government’s duty to safeguard Filipinos in digital spaces, the DICT is coordinating with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Centre (CICC), and other relevant authorities,” the agency said.
The DICT said the coordination is meant to determine possible regulatory action under Republic Act No. 10175, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, particularly provisions addressing content-related offenses and the use of ICT for illegal acts.
Grok, developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, is a tool on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that enables users to generate images. However, it has recently been misused to alter photos of real people, depicting them in revealing clothing.
The DICT said the sexually explicit images produced by Grok fall under online sexual abuse or exploitation of children.
It noted, however, that Grok’s digital footprint in the Philippines remains relatively small.
Malaysia and Indonesia were the first two countries to block Grok, also due to concerns over its misuse for sexually explicit content. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
