Elon Musk’s online platform X is training its chatbot Grok with user input as standard. Since they weren’t explicitly asked for permission to do so, the move has sent European data protection advocates into action.
Users noticed the innovation in the data protection settings yesterday. A check mark was already ticked to allow Grok to use public X posts as well as direct interactions with the chatbot automatically for everyone.
The setting can only be changed in the web version of X (formerly Twitter); it's currently not displayed at all in the smartphone app. X has announced that this should change soon.
The Data Protection Authority has questions
The Irish data protection authority responsible for X in Europe now has questions about the service. It told the Financial Times it had been in discussions with the platform for months about the use of user data in AI systems. “We were surprised that they came forward with this.”
X's approach raises the question of whether the service complies with the requirements of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), under which users must first obtain consent in order to use personal data. They must also be informed of the reasons for this.
