Elon Musk’s X Sparks Outrage with Secret Use of User Data for Grok AI Training, Privacy Watchdog 'Shocked'

X, formerly Twitter, secretly added user data to its AI training pool for Grok, shocking the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).

Privacy Watchdog Reaction

Users of the network noticed on Friday that X, formerly Twitter, had discreetly implemented a change that seemed to incorporate user data into its artificial intelligence training pool for Grok.

X, owned by Elon Musk, created the conversational AI Grok as a competitor to OpenAI's popular ChatGPT chatbot, with the intention of making it funnier and less politically correct.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which oversees data protection in Ireland, has expressed its "surprise" at the platform's action, indicating that it is paying attention to the matter. It has "followed up" and is waiting for X to respond, according to the watchdog.

“The DPC has been engaging with X on this matter for a number of months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday,” Graham Doyle, deputy commissioner of the DPC, told TechCrunch. "Therefore we are surprised by today’s developments. We have followed up with X today and are awaiting a response. We expect further engagement early next week."

The DPC is in charge of making sure that X follows the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a regulation that applies across the whole European Union. If X is found to be in violation of this law, the company might face penalties equal to four percent of its yearly global turnover.

Grok Data-Sharing Feature

When you enable the Grok data-sharing feature on X by default, the following text appears: "Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning." A smaller (grayer) print adds: "To continuously improve your experience, we may utilize your X posts as well as your user interactions, inputs and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes" — with X further specifying that such data "may be shared with our service provider xAI for these purposes."

Due to the vague wording, it is unclear if X is using all user data to train Grok or if this processing only pertains to chatbot conversations (which are accessible to X premium users).

The privacy regulations of the European Union require businesses to have a legitimate reason to process the personal data of EU residents. However, the existence of this requirement is unclear.