X's Privacy Policy Reveals Use of Public Data for AI Model Training

X’s recently updated privacy policy now indicates that it will begin collecting biometric data along with users' job and education histories, as reported by Bloomberg earlier this week. However, this isn’t the only significant change regarding the data usage policies at X. An update in another section reveals that the company intends to utilize both the collected data and other publicly accessible information to assist in training its machine learning and artificial intelligence models.

Alex Ivanovs from Stackdiary, known for uncovering important updates in tech companies' terms of service, highlighted this development. He has previously identified AI-related changes in Brave and Zoom. His findings have gained traction on Y Combinator’s discussion platform, Hacker News.

Notably, the change appears in section 2.1 of X's policy, which states:

"We may use the information we collect and publicly available information to help train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models for the purposes outlined in this policy."

Ivanovs theorizes that X owner Elon Musk, who is aiming to enter the AI market with his new venture, xAI, likely sees X as a valuable data source for this initiative. Musk's recent tweet encouraging journalists to share their work on X may have been an effort to generate more engaging data for AI training.

Musk has previously noted that xAI plans to utilize "public tweets" for training its AI models, making this direction seem plausible. He has criticized other tech companies for utilizing Twitter data unlawfully and even threatened legal action against Microsoft for alleged unauthorized use of this data. Musk has also initiated lawsuits against unknown entities for scraping Twitter data, presumably for developing large language models in artificial intelligence.

Furthermore, Ivanovs points to the xAI homepage, which indicates that although it operates independently from X Corp., it will "work closely with X (Twitter), Tesla, and other companies to advance our mission."

Musk has confirmed the privacy policy update, clarifying in a response on X that they will only use "public data, not DMs or anything private."

Unlike the past practice of responding to press inquiries with a poop emoji after Musk’s acquisition of the social network, X now uses an auto-responder stating, "We’ll get back to you soon." If this proves accurate, we will include any comments from X.