Grok is a large language model (LLM) created by Elon Musk's company xAI, which works on a similar principle to the popular ChatGPT. This tool enables comprehensive text generation and other tasks related to natural language processing.
Elon Musk himself boasted that Grok is in many ways a better tool than ChataGPT, and at the same time “not devoid of a sense of humor” and “free from political correctness”
For a large language model to work well, it must be “fed” with gigantic data sets. This was the case with Grok itself, which was trained, among others, on content generated by X users. The problem is that this happened without their consent, or even informing them about this fact.
After these revelations information Elon Musk has been criticized not only by users, but also by journalists, politicians, and national privacy regulators. The Irish equivalent of our UODO, the Data Protection Commission (DPC), has also weighed in on the matter.
DPC said it was “surprised” by Platform X's actions. The Commission also announced that it had “already taken follow-up actions” and was waiting for a response from Elon Musk. However, it has not received this response.
X sued in Ireland. All because of Grok's appetite
Now the DPC has moved from words to action. As reported on Tuesday by the Irish Independentthe Commission “has brought proceedings in the Irish High Court against Twitter International Unlimited Company over concerns about the way it processes the personal data of millions of European users of the 'X' platform”.
In an official statement, the DPC explained that its concerns focused on the use of content created by X portal users residing in the European Union/European Economic Area to train systems artificial intelligenceincluding a tool known as Grok.
According to the Commission, such actions may violate the provisions of the GDPR. Let us recall that the general regulation on protection in force in the EU requires that any processing of personal data be based on a specific legal basis. Violation of the provisions of the GDPR may result in fines of up to 4% of the global annual turnover of a given company.
As reported by RTEthe DPC is seeking an injunction against Twitter (the Irish branch of the company has not changed its name to X) over threats to continue processing user data for the purpose of training AI models.
Grok is lying about the US election? In his world, Kamala Harris has no chance
This is not the end of the controversy related to Grok. A few days ago it turned out that Elon Musk's tool spread false information about Kamala Harristhe Democratic Party candidate in the US elections. Importantly, Musk himself officially supported her rival – Donald Trump – in the election.
“We are calling for immediate implementation of changes to the xAI search assistant Grok to ensure voters receive accurate information in this critical election year” – the secretaries of five states: Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Washington, Michigan and New Mexico appealed to Elon Musk.
Grok allegedly tried to convince his interlocutors that changing the Democratic candidate from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris was not possible in several US states because the deadline for voting on candidates had passed. In the meantime, it was still possible to change the candidate in each of the states, and the votes had not yet been held. Before the information was corrected, the chatbot repeated the lies for nine days.
– In year presidential elections It is critical that voters receive accurate information about how to exercise their right to vote, said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon. “Voters should contact their state or local election officials to learn how, when and where they can vote,” added one of the signatories to Musk’s letter.