X, the company owned by Elon Musk, recently made updates to its privacy policy regarding the collection and usage of user data. The most significant change is the inclusion of biometric data, job and education history, and the use of public information to train its machine learning and AI models, as reported by Bloomberg.
Privacy Policy Update
According to Stackdiary’s Alex Ivanovs, X’s policy update was spotted in section 2.1 of the privacy policy. The updated portion states that X may utilize the information it collects, in addition to publicly available data, to train its machine learning and artificial intelligence models for the purposes outlined in the policy.
Elon Musk’s Ambitions
Ivanovs speculates that Elon Musk’s intentions with X’s data collection align with his ambitions in the AI market through another company called xAI. Musk has previously expressed his plan to utilize “public tweets” to train xAI’s AI models. This theory suggests that X could serve as a valuable data source for xAI. Musk’s recent tweet encouraging journalists to write on X may have been an attempt to generate more interesting and useful data to feed into the AI models.
Legal Rulings and Partnerships
Musk has previously accused tech giants of using Twitter data to train their AI models and even threatened legal action against Microsoft for alleged illegal use of Twitter data. Ivanovs highlights the text on the xAI homepage, which mentions the company’s collaboration with X, Twitter, Tesla, and other companies to advance their mission.
Confirmation from Elon Musk
Elon Musk himself responded to a post on X, confirming the privacy policy change and stating that the plan is to use “just public data” without accessing direct messages or private information.
Key Takeaway
X’s updated privacy policy reveals its intention to utilize public data, including users’ job and education history, to train its machine learning and AI models. This move aligns with Elon Musk’s ambitions in the AI market and his plans for the company xAI. By leveraging publicly available information, Musk aims to generate more interesting and valuable data for AI training.
Press requests to X no longer receive the lighthearted poop emoji response that followed Musk’s takeover of the social network. Instead, an auto-responder states that they will get back to inquiries soon, indicating a potential comment from X in the future.
