Musk’s Starlink to allow consumer data to train AI
SpaceX revised Starlink privacy policy to allow customer data to be used for AI training; This is a change that could support Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence goals.
Ahead of a blockbuster IPO planned for later this year, SpaceX is in talks to merge with Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI; This deal was first reported by Reuters on Thursday.
SpaceX, currently the world’s most valuable private company, could be valued at over US$1 (A1.4) trillion after its IPO.
Starlink updated its Global Privacy Policy on January 15, according to the Starlink website.
The policy includes new details stating that unless a user opts out, Starlink data may be used “to train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models” and shared with the company’s service providers and “third-party collaborators,” without providing further details.
The previous version of the privacy policy, archived in November and reviewed by Reuters, did not include a statement about AI training on Starlink data.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
Starlink collects a large amount of user data, including location information, credit card information, contact information and user IP addresses.
It also collects so-called communication data, which includes “audio and visual information, data in shared files, and inferences we may make from other personal information we collect,” according to its global privacy policy.
The policy did not make clear exactly what data would be used to train the AI.
The move has raised concerns among privacy advocates and consumer rights groups, who argue that using personal data to train AI risks expanding surveillance and creating new avenues for abuse.
“This certainly raises eyebrows and would concern me if I were a Starlink user,” said Anupam Chander, a professor of technology law at Georgetown University.
“There are often completely legitimate uses of your data, but there are no clear boundaries as to what uses they will be subject to.”
Musk’s xAI, valued at US$230bn ($329bn) following a recent funding round, is currently developing the Grok LLM chatbot and also owns social media platform X.
The potential merger with xAI would accelerate the space company’s deployment of AI-powered services and give xAI vast new data sets, including communications data, on which it can train its models.
Starlink, a network of more than 9,000 satellites, currently provides internet connectivity to more than nine million users.
Australia’s Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national news channel and has been providing accurate, reliable and fast-paced news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We inform Australia.
