This week, Tesla customers found out they were receiving a freebie: the Grok AI chatbot would be installed and used automatically in all new Tesla automobiles as of July 12.
Grok is, of course, the chatbot developed by xAI, the privately held artificial intelligence firm that Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, founded two years ago. Similar to a petrol station that gives out a free vehicle wash when you fuel up, Musk seems to be using his many resources and business ventures to provide consumers with additional value. It is reasonable to question who is benefiting more from this “gift” in this instance, though, given it further ties Musk’s firms together.
Grok is now a button on the homescreen of the Tesla in-car display after the upgrade. Like with any other LLM, such as Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, users may ask it questions and assign it tasks. Although Grok is currently unable to manage any vehicle systems, such as windows or air conditioning, it is easy to foresee that users would find many practical applications for an in-car LLM, ranging from answering emails to summarizing books.
Tesla is expected to become a major client of xAI as a result of the new agreement, even though neither firm has revealed any financial information about the collaboration. Because of this new relationship, millions more consumers will be able to start utilizing Grok, since Tesla sold about 1.8 million vehicles last year alone. xAI, which is currently allegedly spending over $1 billion a month to expand its data centers and purchase enough computer chips to compete with other AI businesses, may see an increase in processing expenses if even a tiny portion of new Tesla buyers take advantage of the function.
It’s crucial to consider the potential data sharing that may take place now that Tesla vehicles have Grok installed. Driver chats with Grok will be “securely processed by xAI” in accordance with xAI’s privacy policy, according to disclosures from Tesla. The company notes that the discussions would be anonymised and unrelated to specific cars. The company gathers user content, social media data, personal information, and other data points for its service, according to xAI’s privacy policy. It will share this data with its “related companies,” contracted service providers, and any other third parties that customers choose to share their information with. However, when Grok is utilized in automobiles, what precise data would xAI have access to? Elon Musk has proposed adding a “wake-word,” but would this restrict the conversational snippets it records, or does it record anything uttered in the car once it is turned on through the homescreen?
Additionally, discussions are only one type of data available. In the end, cars are now among the most potent data-gathering machines in daily life. According to some estimates, vehicles create over 25 terabytes of data every hour from their numerous processors and sensors. This data might be especially useful for a business that has a huge language model to train.
According to its own privacy policy, Tesla lets users download copies of the data it gathers for themselves and reveals that it utilizes car data for its own self-driving AI models. However, Tesla hasn’t revised its privacy policy since adding Grok on July 12 and doesn’t specify which data it uses or why, so it’s unknown how conversations may be utilized.
xAI and Tesla did not reply to inquiries for comment.
“We see this as part of a broader trend in the automotive industry,” says Albert Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a legal services, advocacy, and public interest group that focuses on the use of technology to target people. “Cars are now the most closely watched aspects of our life, having changed from being a symbol of freedom on the open road. There is a significant chance that the information gathered in the privacy of our own vehicles may be exploited against us, either by legal or immigration authorities or by being monetized without our knowledge or approval.
Particularly, Tesla cars have a number of cameras that gather information from video and camera feeds, ultrasonic sensor data, GPS and location data, vehicle telemetry data like speed, battery life, and odometer readings, event logs like collisions or breaking data, and user interaction data. Tesla has given this information to government agencies in order to track down criminals or help law enforcement with investigations. It’s unclear if discussions with Grok may be allowed to be used in further investigations.
More and more information is being gathered from drivers, especially as additional cameras and sensors are added to cars for self-driving capabilities, according to Cahn. He claims that although these businesses are eager to assert that their data is being anonymized, it is actually very difficult to make this kind of data unidentifiable.
There are, of course, privacy trade-offs with any new technology. Digital traces left by the GPS that provides you with instructions also disclose your whereabouts and wanderings. As the creator of some of the most well-known tech goods of today, such as EVs, self-driving technology, LLMs, social media, and Starlink internet satellites, Musk seems more determined than ever to combine and mix the many parts of his company empire to provide customers with something fresh and different. Whether the trade-offs are worthwhile will be up to the customers.
