Key takeaways Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Grok AI will be integrated into Pentagon networks later this month, alongside Google’s AI systems. The move comes days after Malaysia and In...
Speaking at Musk's SpaceX facility in South Texas, Hegseth said Grok would join Google's generative AI engine in operating across Department of Defense systems.
"Very soon we will have the world's leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department," Hegseth stated.
The timing of the announcement has drawn scrutiny, as it follows by just days a global backlash against Grok for generating highly sexualized deepfake images of people without their consent, including images of women and minors.
Indonesia became the first country to block access to Grok on Saturday, followed by Malaysia on Sunday.
Indonesian Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement that "The government sees nonconsensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the safety of citizens in the digital space."
Alexander Sabar, Indonesia's director general of digital space supervision, said initial findings showed that Grok lacks effective safeguards to stop users from creating and distributing pornographic content based on real photos of Indonesian residents.
Malaysia's Communications and Multimedia Commission announced it would temporarily restrict access to Grok following "repeated misuse" of the tool "to generate obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive, and non-consensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors."
The regulator said access will remain blocked until effective safeguards are implemented.
On Monday, the UK's media regulator Ofcom announced a formal investigation into X under the Online Safety Act.
In a statement, Ofcom said there have been "deeply concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share undressed images of people, which may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography, and sexualised images of children that may amount to child sexual abuse material."
Ofcom contacted X on January 5 and set a deadline of January 9 for the company to explain its compliance measures.
The regulator is now assessing whether X failed to properly assess risks, prevent illegal content, and protect users from privacy law breaches.
If Ofcom finds violations, it can impose fines of up to £18 million or 10 percent of worldwide revenue, whichever is greater, and could potentially seek to block the platform in the UK.
Regulators in the European Union, India, France, and other countries have also announced investigations or expressed serious concerns about Grok's content generation capabilities.
Despite the international backlash, Hegseth is moving forward with plans to make Grok operational within the Defense Department later this month. He announced he would "make all appropriate data" from the military's IT systems available for "AI exploitation," and said data from intelligence databases would also be fed into AI systems.
"We need innovation to come from anywhere and evolve with speed and purpose," Hegseth said during his speech.
He noted that the Pentagon possesses "combat-proven operational data from two decades of military and intelligence operations," adding, "AI is only as good as the data that it receives, and we're going to make sure that it's there."
Hegseth said his vision for military AI systems means they operate "without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications," before adding that the Pentagon's "AI will not be woke."
This approach represents a sharp departure from the Biden administration, which enacted a framework in late 2024 directing national security agencies to expand AI use while prohibiting certain applications, such as those that would violate constitutionally protected civil rights or automate the deployment of nuclear weapons.
It remains unclear whether these prohibitions remain in place under the Trump administration.
Grok has previously drawn controversy, including an incident in July when it appeared to make antisemitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions about these issues.
When contacted by media outlets about the global backlash, xAI's media support address sent an automated reply stating, "Legacy Media Lies."
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