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X, formerly known as Twitter, has automatically activated a setting that allows the company to train its Grok AI on users’ posts. X enabled the new setting by default. The good news is that you can switch it off and also delete your conversation history with the AI.
If the setting is turned on, X can “utilize your X posts as well as your user interactions, inputs and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes,” according to the platform’s settings page. X goes on to note that “this also means that your interactions, inputs, and results may also be shared with our service provider xAI for these purposes.”
Although it’s not possible to disable the setting via X’s mobile app, you can do so on the desktop version of the social network.
How to switch off X’s data sharing settings:
Open up the Settings page on X on your desktop. Select the “Privacy and safety” button. Select “Grok.” Uncheck the box.
A screenshot showing how to switch off the Data Sharing settings in X’s desktop mode. Image Credits: TechCrunchImage Credits: TechCrunch/Screenshot
After you have switched off the setting, you can delete your conversation history (if any) with the AI by clicking on the “Delete conversation history” button.
Earlier this week, X owner Elon Musk said xAI had started training its Grok large language model using “the most powerful AI training cluster in the world.” Musk said that the AI model would become “the world’s most powerful AI by every metric by December [2024].” Now, it’s clear that Musk and X were hoping to use more than the powerful training cluster to train its AI by also using users’ past tweets and posts.
X isn’t the only social network that has utilized user data to train its AI, as Meta notified EU and U.K. users last month of an upcoming change that would allow it to use public content on Facebook and Instagram to train its AI. The company eventually bowed to regulatory pressure and paused its plans.
