Whether you hate the privacy infringements or simply don’t like artificial intelligence, you might not want X using your posts to train Grok, its AI. You might not even be aware that’s what’s happening right now. Here’s what to do.
What Is Grok and How Does It Use Your Posts?
Grok is a large language model, part of X’s startup, xAI, with the ability to access real-time knowledge on X (formerly Twitter). It can answer your questions and suggest posts, and does so with a hint of Elon Musk-inspired sarcasm. Grok initially launched a beta version for users in the US in late 2023, but has since rolled out more widely across the world.
To learn and speak like an actual person, AI needs to base itself on real humans. For Grok, that means mining data from anything you put on your X feed, including images. This is one way AI tools grow despite running out of typed data.
You're opted into providing AI training data by default, so whatever you post on the social media platform can be used to train the system. Anything used by Grok can also be shared with its parent company, xAI.
How to Opt Out of Your X Data Being Used to Train Grok
Using your personal data like that might arguably mean it’s in contravention of privacy laws like GDPR. That’s why, right now, X gives you the option of opting out of Grok learning from your posts.
So how do you stop Grok from training itself on your posts?
First, tap on your profile photo at the top-left of the X app, and go on Settings and Support then Settings and privacy in the dropdown menu. Scroll down and go to Privacy and safety > Grok, which can be found at the bottom of your interface.
There’s a button next to Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning. This is switched on by default. Tap on it to toggle it off.
Here, you can also Delete conversation history, which means you can no longer access any interactions you’ve had with the AI.
There are rumors that this will all change when X updates its app and Terms of Service, so stay vigilant. If you really hate the company having your information, you should consider deleting X entirely.
Opting out of providing your data for AI training gives you more control over how your personal information is used. After all, our data is already harvested for training algorithms and targeted advertising. Just because you post something online doesn't mean that you want it to become part of a dataset for a large language model.