Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the recent owner of Twitter (now known as X), has been critical of the AI industry while also becoming a part of it. X’s Grok generative AI product is now being integrated into the social network, scanning billions of tweets through an automatic opt-in for all users. This constant influx of conversations from active users has drawn Grok’s attention, leading to the automatic scanning of user content, interactions, inputs, and search results.
Currently, Grok is being used as a chatbot for premium users and to summarize news stories, but users have criticized its responses for being flippant and rebellious. The model’s reliance on updated data from X also makes it vulnerable to misinformation campaigns.
All X/Twitter users are opted into having their data scanned by Grok, whether they use premium features or not. However, users can opt out manually by navigating to X’s Settings menu on the web, clicking on Privacy & Safety, then Grok, and unchecking the box that allows posts to be used for training.
Interestingly, the term “grok,” meaning to understand deeply, originated from Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein, known for his speculative fiction and libertarian themes, valued privacy greatly, a sentiment that contrasts with a social network scanning user content without explicit consent.
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