August 09, 2024 – According to a report by Reuters today, Elon Musk’s X platform has agreed to refrain from using certain EU user data for training its AI chatbots. The decision comes after an Irish court ruling on Thursday, which stated that the social media platform X has consented to temporarily halt the use of personal data collected from EU users for training its AI systems, until such users choose to revoke their consent.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has sought an injunction this week to suspend or restrict X’s processing of user data for the development, training, or improvement of its artificial intelligence systems. This move follows a report in July that revealed X users had been automatically opted-in to have their posts and interactions with xAI’s Grok chatbot used for “training and fine-tuning” the xAI system. This data sharing occurred without explicit user consent. Currently, users can only adjust these settings on the desktop version of X and cannot opt-out via the mobile app.
The DPC, responsible for implementing EU privacy laws, has been in discussions with X for “several months” regarding its plans to use user data for creating AI systems. The regulatory body indicated that it had recently sent inquiries to the company last Thursday, addressing issues such as “user transparency.”
