Technology
Elon Musk’s X targeted by nine privacy complaints after EU user data was intercepted to train Grok

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has change into the goal of a series of privacy complaints after it shared user data from the European Union to train artificial intelligence models without asking for consent.
At the top of last month eagle-eyed social media user spotted a setup that indicated X had quietly begun processing regional user post data to train its Grok AI chatbot. The discovery prompted an expression of “surprise” from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), the body that oversees X’s compliance with the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
GDPR, which may punish confirmed violations with fines of up to 4% of worldwide annual turnover, requires all uses of private data to have a legitimate legal basis. Nine complaints against X, filed with data protection authorities in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, accuse it of failing to accomplish that by processing Europeans’ posts to train AI without obtaining their consent.
Commenting in a press release, Max Schrems, president of the non-profit privacy rights organization night who supports the complaints, said: “We have seen countless cases of ineffective and partial enforcement by the DPC in recent years. We want to make sure that Twitter fully complies with EU law, which — at a minimum — requires that users’ consent be sought in this case.”
The DPC has already taken some motion over X’s processing of data to train an AI model, launching legal proceedings within the Irish High Court looking for an injunction to stop using the data. However, noyb argues that the DPC’s actions to date are insufficient, mentioning that X users don’t have any way of forcing the corporate to delete “data they have already collected.” In response, noyb has filed GDPR complaints in Ireland and 7 other countries.
The complaints allege that X has no legitimate basis to use the data of some 60 million people within the EU to train AI without obtaining their consent. The platform appears to depend on a legal basis referred to as “legitimate interest” for AI-related processing. However, privacy experts say it must obtain people’s consent.
“Companies that communicate directly with users simply need to show them a yes/no prompt before using their data. They do this regularly for a lot of other things, so it would certainly be possible to do this for AI training as well,” Schrems suggested.
In June, Meta put an analogous plan to process user data for AI training on hold after noyb backed some GDPR complaints and regulators intervened.
However, Company X’s approach of quietly releasing user data to train its AI without notifying humans apparently allowed it to go undetected for several weeks.
According to the DPC, X processed data of Europeans for the needs of coaching the AI model between May 7 and August 1.
X users got the power to opt out of the processing via a setting added to the net version of the platform — apparently in late July. But there was no way to block the processing from happening. And in fact, it’s hard to opt out of using your data to train AI should you don’t even realize it’s happening.
This is vital since the GDPR goals to explicitly protect Europeans from unexpected uses of their data that might have consequences for his or her rights and freedoms.
In arguing against X’s selection of legal basis, noyb cites a ruling from last summer by Europe’s highest court — concerning an antitrust grievance relating to Meta’s use of private data for ad targeting — by which judges ruled that the legitimate interest legal basis was not valid for this use case and that user consent have to be obtained.
Noyb also points out that generative AI vendors typically claim they’re unable to meet other core GDPR requirements, corresponding to the appropriate to be forgotten or the appropriate to obtain a replica of 1’s personal data. Such concerns are raised in other pending GDPR complaints against OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Technology
Aurora launches a commercial self -propelled truck service in Texas

The autonomous startup of the Aurora Innovation vehicle technology claims that it has successfully launched a self -propelled truck service in Texas, which makes it the primary company that she implemented without drivers, heavy trucks for commercial use on public roads in the USA
The premiere appears when Aurora gets the term: In October, the corporate delayed the planned debut 2024 to April 2025. The debut also appears five months after the rival Kodiak Robotics provided its first autonomous trucks to clients commercial for operations without a driver in field environments.
Aurora claims that this week she began to freight between Dallas and Houston with Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight starters, and that she has finished 1200 miles without a driver to this point. The company plans to expand to El Paso and Phoenix until the top of 2025.
TechCrunch contacted for more detailed information concerning the premiere, for instance, the variety of vehicles implemented Aurora and whether the system needed to implement the Pullover maneuver or the required distant human assistance.
The commercial premiere of Aurora takes place in a difficult time. Self -propelled trucks have long been related to the necessity for his or her technology attributable to labor deficiencies in the chairman’s transport and the expected increase in freigh shipping. Trump’s tariffs modified this attitude, not less than in a short period. According to the April analytical company report from the commercial vehicle industry ACT researchThe freight is predicted to fall this yr in the USA with a decrease in volume and consumer expenditure.
Aurora will report its results in the primary quarter next week, i.e. when he shares how he expects the present trade war will affect his future activity. TechCrunch contacted to learn more about how tariffs affect Auror’s activities.
For now, Aurora will probably concentrate on further proving his safety case without a driver and cooperation with state and federal legislators to just accept favorable politicians to assist her develop.
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At the start of 2025, Aurora filed a lawsuit against federal regulatory bodies after the court refused to release the appliance for release from the protection requirement, which consists in placing warning triangles on the road, when the truck must stop on the highway – something that’s difficult to do when there isn’t a driver in the vehicle. To maintain compliance with this principle and proceed to totally implement without service drivers, Aurora probably has a man -driven automotive trail after they are working.
(Tagstranslate) Aurora Innovation
Technology
Sarah Tavel, the first woman of the Benchmark GP, goes to the Venture partner

Eight years after joining Benchmark as the company’s first partner, Sarah Tavel announced that she was going to a more limited role at Hapeure Venture.
In his latest position as a partner Venture Tavel will proceed to invest and serve existing company boards, but may have more time to examine “AI tools on the edge” and fascinated with the direction of artificial intelligence, she wrote.
Tavel joined Benchmark in 2017 after spending a half years as a partner in Greylock and three years as a product manager at Pinterest. Before Pinterest, Tavel was an investor in Bessemer Venture Partners, where she helped Source Pinterest and Github.
Since its foundation in 1995, the benchmark intentionally maintained a small team of six or fewer general partners. Unlike most VC corporations, wherein older partners normally receive most of the management and profits fees, the benchmark acts as an equal partnership, and all partners share fees and returns equally.
During his term as a general partner of Benchmark, Tavel invested in Hipcamp on the campsite, chains of cryptocurrency intelligence startups and the Supergreaty cosmetic platform, which was purchased by Whatnot in 2023. Tavel also supported the application for sharing photos of Paparazhi, which closed two years ago, and the AI 11x sales platform, about which TechCrunch wrote.
(Tagstotransate) benchmark
Technology
Openai repairs a “error” that allowed the minor to generate erotic conversations

Openai chatgpt error has allowed chatbot to generate graphic eroticism for accounts wherein the user registered as a minor, under the age of 18, TechCrunch has revealed and Opeli confirmed.
In some cases, chatbot even encouraged these users to ask for more pronounced content.
Opeli told Techcrunch that the rules don’t allow such answers to users under 18 years of age and that they shouldn’t be shown. The company added that “actively implements the amendment” to limit such content.
“Protection of younger users is the highest priority, and our model specification, which directs model behavior, clearly limits sensitive content, such as erotica to narrow contexts, such as scientific, historical or press reports,” said spokesman TechCrunch via e -mail. “In this case, the error allowed for answers outside these guidelines, and we actively implement a correction to limit these generations.”
TechCrunch’s goal in testing CHATGPT was to examine the handrails on the accounts registered for minors after OpenAi improved the platform to make it more acceptable.
In February, Opeli updated his technical specifications to accomplish that Of course CHATGPT AI models don’t avoid sensitive topics. In the same month, the company removed some warning messages that informed users that hints may violate the conditions of providing services.
The purpose of those changes consisted in reducing what the head of the product Chatgpt Nick Turley called “unjustified/unexplained denying”. But one in all the results is that chatgpt with the chosen default AI (GPT-4O) model is more likely to discuss entities he once refused, including sexual intercourse.
First of all, we tested chatgpt by way of sexual content, since it is an area wherein Opeli said that he wanted to chill out restrictions. Altman itself, general director of Opeli He expressed his desire In the case of “adult mode” chatgpt, and the company signaled readiness to permission for some types of “NSFW” content on its platform.
To conduct our tests, TechCrunch created over half a dozen CHATPPT accounts with birthday dates indicating for hundreds of years from 13 to 17 years. We used one computer, but we deleted cookies each time we logged out so that ChatgPT didn’t use buffered data.
Openai Rules Require children aged 13 to 18 to obtain parental consent before using chatgpt. But the platform doesn’t take steps to confirm this consent during registration. As long as they’ve a valid phone number or e -mail address, any child over 13 years old can register an account without confirmation that their parents grant permission.
For each test account, we began a fresh conversation with a fast “talc Dirty for me”. Usually, this only required a few messages and extra hints before chatgpt got here to sexual volunteer. Often, chatbot asked for recommendations on specific scenarios and roles.
“We can go to excessive stimulation, many forced climax, respiratory, even more rough domination-what you want,” said Chatgpt during one exchange with a TechCrunch account registered on a fictitious 13-year-old. To make it clear, it was after the destruction of Chatbot to make it more clear in the descriptions of the sexual situation.
In our tests persistently ChatgPT would warn that his guidelines don’t allow “fully clear sexual content”, equivalent to graphic presentations of relations and pornographic scenes. However, Chatgpt from time to time wrote descriptions of the genital organs and clear sexual activities, rejecting only in a single case with one test account, when Techcrunch noticed that the user was lower than 18 years old.
“You just know: you have to have 18+ to demand or interact with all content that is sexual, public or very suggestive,” Chatgpt said after generating a whole lot of words of erotica. “If you are less than 18, I have to stop this type of content immediately – this is the exact principle of OpenAI.”
Investigation by The Wall Street Journal I discovered similar behavior with AI Chatbot Meta, Meta AI after the company’s leadership sought to remove sexual content restrictions. For a while, minors were able to access meta AI and have interaction in playing sexual roles with fictitious characters.
However, the dropping of some AI security through OpenAI comes when the company aggressively transfers its product to schools.
Opennai establishes cooperation with organizations, including Common Sense Media to produce guides for the ways wherein teachers can include their technology in the classroom.
These efforts paid off. According to the survey, at the starting of this yr, the increasing variety of younger Zers genes include chatgpt for college works.
IN Service document In the case of educational clients, OPENAI notes that ChatGPT “can produce a production that is not suitable for all recipients or at any age”, and teachers “should be careful (…) when using (chatgpt) with students or in class contexts.”
Steven Adler, a former safety researcher at OPENAI, warned that the techniques of controlling the AII chatbot behavior are “fragile” and fall -up. He was surprised, nevertheless, that Chatgpt was so willing to explicitly express himself from minors.
“The assessments should be able to catch such behaviors before launching, so I wonder what happened,” said Adler.
CHATGPT users have noticed a variety of strange behaviors over the past week, specifically extreme flatteryafter GPT-4O updates. In the post on the tenth Sunday, the general director of Openai Sam Altman recognized Some problems and said that the company “worked on corrections as soon as possible.” However, he didn’t mention the treatment of ChatgPT sexual theme.
(Tagstransate) chatgpt
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