There is speculation that the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk is scraping government data for his AI company.
Some internet users raised the issue on 18 February, alleging that Musk who is also deep into artificial intelligence could be using information he accesses in government agencies to train his AI models.
The allegation is coming in the midst of a crackdown on government agencies to scrutinize their spending in a bid to curb waste of government funds.
A mix of events
Elon Musk has been involved with artificial intelligence long before he became the head of DOGE.
Shortly after buying X, he introduced Grok, an AI image generator that competes with big names like ChatGPT.
Since assuming the office, he has been requesting access to and obtaining clearance to examine financial data of different government agencies.
He also recently released Grok 3, which is said to be for premium X users only. This could be the event that triggered this allegation.
“Who’s going to stop him (Musk)? And is it even illegal? What would be the likely target? Grok? xAI? What would be the potential capabilities of such an AI? So many questions, but it seems obvious. He’d be stupid NOT to, wouldn’t he?”
To some, Musk is looking for a monopoly in AI, which he can use to “gaslight whatever selections of the population however he wants.”
Interestingly, a U.S. court recently declined to stop him from accessing files of federal agencies and firing federal workers, meaning he may be accessing those files for a long time.
An ongoing battle
The battle between Musk’s Grok and other AI chatbots has been on for a while, and the X-based Grok has always found a way to shine whenever it can.
ChatGPT experienced a few outages last year, during which time Grok shone and became popular among AI users, thus laying the foundation for its growth today.
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