The app formerly known as Twitter is set to change its terms and conditions in aid of using every single user’s posts to train their AI, Grok. And this time, there is no opting out of it.

Most people just shrug their shoulders over this, but it’s actually very concerning. Here are just a few reasons why.

8. Your privacy is genuinely at risk

It’s one thing for you to share your thoughts in your own corner of X and for next to nobody to see it. It’s definitely another to have those innermost thoughts possibly end up being a talking point for Grok to answer every single time the relevant question gets asked. This goes double for people who actually lock their tweets from public viewing — their posts will still be used by Grok regardless, which means there is no reasonable expectation of privacy whatsoever on the platform, regardless of your settings.

7. Data ownership becomes a problem

By default, users own the rights to their posts on the platform. By forcing users to allow Grok to train on all these tweets, the lines of ownership and control get blurrier than ever.

6. Ethical issues arise

Have you seen the user base on X lately? Does that imply that Grok is going to turn into a right-leaning AI that spews misinformation and hate speech every chance it gets? Training an AI on the cesspool that is Twitter in 2024 will certainly lead one to question the accuracy of the information Grok will output, and thus put into question if it’s ethical to have an inherently skewed and biased AI end up shaping X users even further.

5. A glaring lack of transparency

So… exactly what is going to be fair game for Grok? Our photos? Our clever refrigerator thoughts? Once all that data is gathered, what next? The vagueness of the language when it comes to both the process of gathering the data and the subsequent utilization is cause for alarm because let’s face it — we don’t know. And that’s problematic.

4. Security Risks

AI models trained on large datasets often store representations of that data. What if that data gets hacked? What can end up being extracted? Credit card info? Private details? Home addresses? As hackers get more sophisticated with how they reconstruct data, there are no guarantees what’s at risk in case of a security breach.

3. It Violates Our Trust As Users

Show of hands — who of us signed up to Twitter with the expectation that our tweets would be used for AI training? Yep. That’s exactly what we thought. Changing terms without giving users a meaningful choice is a betrayal of trust because this time, they did not give us a choice on the matter.

2. It’s a Legal Nightmare

We already know that different countries have different laws, and Twitter/X hopes to operate in most, if not all, of them. This change will definitely put them at legal odds with some countries that have very stringent data privacy laws. That they changed these terms unilaterally without considering this was a very shortsighted move. How many countries could X suddenly find itself banned or restricted in because of this move? Only time will tell.

1. Who Benefits?

Let’s not fool ourselves: this AI has one ultimate motivation behind it, and that’s profit. Yet here we are as X users, providing all the training Grok needs for free. As if it weren’t bad enough they were already profiting from our data, these platforms are now going to generate ideas of all shapes and sizes based on our ideas, and making money from them.

At some point, we have to realize that being given the chance to type 280 characters into a screen and sharing it with the world for “free” isn’t enough of a benefit to have our thoughts and ideas turned into easy money without us realizing even an ounce of those benefits.

What are your thoughts on X’s new terms and conditions?