Elon Musk Is Secretly Training Grok AI On Your Tweets
Elon Musk Is Secretly Training Grok AI On Your Tweets
Did you know that while you were on X (formerly Twitter) tweeting about Joe Biden shitting his trousers, governments around the world failing at seemingly simple things and World War Three kicking off for a laugh…. That your tweets were being gathered up and used to train Elon Musk’s large language Model, Grok AI?
Neither did I until recently!
Truth be told, I had said on many occasions that I expected this would happen from the moment Grok was announced but it was confirmed yesterday after reading an obscure tweet which set me off on a mission, digging through Twitters maze of account settings.
Apparently I wasn’t alone, lot’s of other X users confirmed the latest security setting had been applied to their accounts and it’s fair to say, many weren’t overly pleased by Musks clandestine action.
Now, when they said Elon was all about free speech, I don’t think this is what they meant but it turns out, your speech is free to Elon unless you delve deep into your account settings and disable his lecherous LLM.
We weren’t the only ones taken aback by this sly little maneuver; European authorities were not informed about the decision, according to TechCrunch and we all know where this is probably heading don’t we? The EU courts.
I wouldn’t mind Elon stealing my mean tweets about privacy and whatnot if he was providing his chatbot for free but the fact that it’s not free and he’s still pilfering my platitudes, that’s a disappointment to me and kind of a deal breaker.
So, Now What?
If you want to opt out of this data collection disaster, it’s quite simple but it must be done through a desktop browser as the mobile app does not yet display the necessary settings.
Here’s how or check out our fun little video below for a visual explanation:
- Open X on your desktop.
- Select “More” in the left sidebar.
- Go to “Settings and privacy.”
- Click on “Privacy and safety.”
- Choose “Grok” towards the bottom of the list.
- Uncheck the box that allows data collection.
I know a lot of you are concerned about AI and how it is being trained, these are very valid concerns as nobody knows what the future will bring with AI now becoming ubiquitous in every online space. It’s fair to say that this automatic opt in could not only erode user trust on the X platform which bills itself as a bastion of free speech but could also potentially violate GDPR legislation, which is designed to protect the privacy of European citizens.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), responsible for overseeing X’s GDPR compliance, expressed surprise at the platform’s decision. The DPC is actively communicating with X, with recent exchanges occurring on Thursday and expects an explanation early next week.
This isn’t the first time a major social media platform has faced legal issues in the EU. Meta encountered similar problems when it tried to collect public content from Europeans but had to back down after EU authorities intervened.
Unlike X, Meta had informed users about its plans and provided a way to opt out, albeit not a user friendly solution. The EU was unimpressed with Meta’s approach and is likely to view the fact that Elon Musk Is Secretly Training Grok AI On Your Tweets even more harshly and as we have seen in the past, they aren’t shy when it comes to imposing huge fines on tech giants.
