The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has expressed “surprise” over social media company X’s decision to use user posts to train an AI chatbot, The Independent reported.
Users of X, formerly known as Twitter, expressed outrage after discovering that the company had enabled a system where their posts could be used to train its Grok AI chatbot.
Grok, which is available to X Premium customers, is billed as a humorous enhanced search feature powered by a “state-of-the-art large language model,” that was initially trained on publicly available sources.
The company now wants to use user interactions and posts to improve the service.
X users are opted in to the new system by default but can choose to opt out in settings on the web-based app.
When enabled, the setting allows posts on he site as well as interactions with the chatbot to be used for “training,” while the data may also be shared with the xAI partner company.
Irish Independent reported Ireland’s Data Protection Commission says that it is “surprised” that Elon Musk’s X platform has automatically ‘opted in’ all X users into Grok AI training programme without a choice. The watchdog says that it will now probe the matter further with X to see whether it complies with EU privacy law.
The move, which cannot be reversed by those using the mobile app, means that Grok AI is using X users’ personal information, including posts, to built its own AI as a rival to ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
“The DPC has been engaged with X on this matter for a number of months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday,” said a spokesperson for the DPC.
“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 Guardian reported Elon Musk’s X platform is under pressure from data regulators after it emerged that users are consenting to their posts being used to build artificial intelligence systems via a default setting on the app.
The UK and Irish data watchdogs said they have contacted X over the apparent attempt to gain user content for data harvesting without them knowing about it.
An X users highlighted the issue on Friday, pointing to a setting on the app that activated by default and permitted the account holder’s posts to be used for training Grok, an AI chatbot built by Musk’s xAI business.
Under UK GDPR, which is based on the EU data regulation of the same name, companies are not allowed to use “pre-ticked boxes” or “any other method of default consent.”
The setting, which comes with an already ticked box, states that you “allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning. According to the X users, the setting can only be turned off on the web version of X.
In my opinion, Elon Musk has been very sneaky about requiring users to let Grok use their posts. I’ve opted out of that on the X website, specifically to prevent having my posts used to train an AI.