Impact of Data Privacy Concerns on Elon Musk's Social Media Platform X

Allegations have emerged regarding the use of user data on Elon Musk's social media platform, X, triggering an investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). The controversy revolves around the revelation that recent alterations in default settings allowed the incorporation of user data into the training procedures of Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok.

The DPC's involvement in the matter has been ongoing for some time, with the most recent communication occurring just yesterday, as reported to TechCrunch on July 25. Expressing surprise at the unfolding events, the Commission has sought clarification from X and anticipates further discussions in the upcoming week.

Grok, the AI chatbot renowned for its clever and engaging nature, is developed under the auspices of xAI, a firm founded by Musk himself.

Various notifications were disseminated to X users to alert them to the changes, enabling the platform to utilize their posts, interactions, inputs, and outcomes for Grok's training and optimization. In response, ProtonMail, a secure email service, provided instructions to its 304,500 X followers on how to disable the default setting to prevent data from being utilized in Grok's training.

The decision to open source Grok by xAI follows Musk's prior announcement and coincides with legal action against a rival AI chatbot developer, OpenAI. While initial details on the open-sourcing of Grok were scarce, the response from the community was predominantly supportive of Musk's initiative. Additionally, Musk's remarks on the platform underscored his skepticism towards OpenAI.

In a separate legal battle on February 29, Musk instigated a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging a breach of the nonprofit agreement forged during the establishment of OpenAI. Musk argues that OpenAI's collaboration with Microsoft deviates from the core principles of the nonprofit pact aimed at advancing open-source artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of humanity.