Govt gives X another 72 hours to file reply over Grok objectionable content

The government has extended by 72 hours the time given to Elon Musk-owned X to explain how its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok was able to generate objectionable images of women and children on request of the platform’s users in India. The platform now has till 5 pm on January 7 to respond to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (Meity’s) queries, including submitting a report on the comprehensive “technical, procedural, and governance-level” review that it was ordered to conduct on the Grok AI application.

“They (X) sought more time, citing holidays in the US and the unavailability of most of their global and legal teams. For the time being, they have complied with government orders of removing all objectionable and illegal content,” the official said.

Earlier this week, in a letter sent to X, the cyber law division of Meity had asked X to “remove or disable access, without delay, to all content already generated or disseminated in violation of applicable laws, in strict compliance with the timelines prescribed under the Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021, without vitiating the evidence in any manner”.

In its letter, the IT ministry had also said that X must also enforce its terms of service and AI-usage restrictions, and take “strong deterrent measures", including suspending, terminating or taking other action against accounts using Grok to create sexually explicit images of women and children.