Ireland’s data privacy authority announced on Friday that it is launching an investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, regarding its utilisation of personal data to develop the AI chatbot, Grok. The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has initiated this inquiry to scrutinise the processing of personal data found in publicly available posts made by European users on X.
The DPC’s aim is to ascertain whether the collection and use of this personal data complied with regulations set forth by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a stringent data privacy law governing the EU. This inquiry is particularly significant since the DPC serves as the primary oversight body for X, given that the company’s European headquarters is located in Dublin.
The investigation focuses on how personal data may have been lawfully handled in training Grok, which operates using large language models (LLMs). LLMs are trained on extensive text datasets, which encompass articles, blog posts, and other content sourced from the internet, forming the backbone of generative AI systems.
Under GDPR, the DPC is empowered to levy substantial fines, potentially reaching €20 million (approximately AUD 36 million) or 4% of a company’s annual turnover for severe breaches. As of now, X has not provided a response to requests for comments concerning the investigation.