In July, X (formerly Twitter) announced the formation of xAI to “better understand artificial intelligence.” Elon Musk stated the main mission of xAI is to “build an efficient artificial general intelligence (AGI) to understand the universe”. He believes that today’s AI chatbots gives ‘nonsense’ and that a more advanced and trustworthy AI is needed to enhance Tesla’s self-driving capabilities.
This week, xAI launched Grok, an AI model based on Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Grok is said to have answers for everything along with humor and can also suggest questions to ask which can make the conversation more human-like.
To compete further with ChatGPT, Grok is meant to have access to real-time information via the X platform and the ability to answer questions that are not entertained by other AI systems. Grok is a 2 month trained beta product and is only available to X premium + members for $16 per month currently.
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“Grok has real-time access to info via the 𝕏 platform, which is a massive advantage over other models. It’s also based & loves sarcasm. I have no idea who could have guided it this way” -Elon Musk, Founder at X (Source: X) |
Currently, only users in USA can access the chatbot while the rest of the world needs to subscribe via personal email in order to enter an early access list.
Although the launch of Grok sounds exciting, detractors are already identifying data privacy issues in its terms and conditions.
Among these points is the fact that actions taken by users are leveraged to train the machine learning algorithm behind the chatbot. This is reminiscent of a previous situation: In March, Italy’s data regulator issued a temporary emergency decision asking OpenAI to stop using the personal information of millions of Italians that’s included in its training data. Just after, in April, the National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties (CNIL) in France told Reuters that it had received several complaints about ChatGPT and was investigating them.
As ChatGPT had been warned for screening the internet, the same issue now arises with Grok as it takes its information from X in real time, including data of users, and learns from daily conversations. Grok does provide a delete option to its users, stating the following:
"You have a right to ask us to delete any personal information which we are holding about you in certain specific circumstances”.
There is no clarity about how this process could work when X is training Grok through information.
Musk has also claimed that Grok is the best AI available today. As months go by, we will see if that proves to be true.
Will you explore Grok? Join the conversation in our Yes We Trust community, a free discussion group for data privacy professionals and enthusiasts, on LinkedIn: