A Turkish court has ordered the blocking of access to Grok, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI company, after the system generated content containing insults to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This was reported by the "Reuters" agency, citing official information, News.bg reports.
The decision marks the first such ban on access to an artificial intelligence tool in Turkey. According to media sources, Grok, which is integrated into the social platform X, generated offensive content when asking certain questions in Turkish.
The Ankara Chief Prosecutor's Office has launched a formal investigation into the case, and the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) has implemented the court order, citing a violation of Turkish laws. Under local law, insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison.
Neither Company X nor its owner Elon Musk have made an official comment on the ban.
The problems with hate speech, political bias, and the accuracy of artificial intelligence systems are not new. They have accompanied the technology since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022. In the case of Grok, the situation is further complicated by an incident earlier this week when the chatbot published content containing anti-Semitic tropes and praise for Adolf Hitler.
Critics of the Turkish government argue that laws protecting the presidency are often used to suppress political opposition and freedom of expression. For their part, the authorities emphasize that the measures are necessary to preserve the dignity of the state institution.