X opens its algorithm to users as Musk pushes transparency

Elon Musk, owner of X, announced on Saturday, January 10, that the social media platform will soon receive an update. The billionaire revealed plans to introduce a new algorithm that will include the code governing which posts and ads users see, with the launch set for just seven days away.

Musk added on X, “This will happen every four weeks, along with detailed developer notes to help you understand what has changed.”

xAI set to implement several changes on X

The executive’s sudden announcement sparked debates among individuals, prompting reports to reach out to Musk for clarity on this update. However, when asked why he chose to make the algorithm’s implementation open source, he declined to respond. 

Sources close to the situation, who wished to remain anonymous due to the confidential nature of the matter, alleged that Musk and his firm have a record of engaging in numerous disagreements with regulators over which content should or should not be displayed to users.

This disagreement arose when several X users began to raise complaints, claiming that the social media platform had deprioritized posts from the accounts they followed. Responding to these allegations, Musk noted in October that this issue was a result of a bug discovered in the “For You” algorithm. Afterwards, he declared that the firm would address the issue as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, reports emphasized that, apart from xAI, the company behind the social media platform X, which seeks to introduce a new algorithm for X, also aims to integrate more advanced AI capabilities into its platform’s recommendation system. This integration is set to widely utilize Grok, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI. 

Notably, this is not the first time Musk has announced updates to X’s algorithms, vowing to make them public. Reports revealed that he had made such pledges earlier but failed to deliver on this implementation. 

For instance, Musk made a similar pledge in September, but the implementation had lacked consistency, sparking discussion among individuals. To address these debates, the owner of X claimed that they had decided to first focus on integrating the platform’s recommendation engine with advanced AI and would publicly provide access to the source code of its algorithm later. At this time, Musk pledged that they would do so about every two weeks.

While users awaited the billionaire to fulfill his promise, Musk released an announcement in October informing them that the alterations they observed in their feeds did not result from the doings of specific individuals who attempted to change the normal operation on the platform, but resulted from the heightened popularity of Grok and other AI tools among people. 

Following this declaration, Musk noted that xAI intended to assign Grok the role of assessing all the posts shared on X daily. Based on his argument, this move is essential as it would enable Grok to display to users posts that are likely to draw their attention, thereby improving the quality of their feed. The owner of X also told users to expect the implementation of new features by November.

However, global regulators disapproved of Grok’s ability to develop images due to the escalation of pictures generated by AI  with sexual content on X. 

Several regulators raise concerns about Musk’s Grok

Following global regulators’ accusations against Grok, it released a statement to users on Friday, January 9, demanding a paid subscription to grant full access to image generation and editing tools. Notably, these features were initially freely accessible to users, though they were subjected to daily restrictions.

Meanwhile, after a thorough investigation, Indonesian regulators hindered their citizens’ access to Grok. These regulators confirmed the claims on Grok about sexual content to be true. Following this news, Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, released a statement this week urging Musk and his team to take note of this finding and fix the problem as soon as possible.

Elizabeth Kendall, a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, also commented on the situation. She cautioned that the government might decide to take Indonesia’s lead and ban its citizens from accessing Grok if Musk and his team fail to adhere to the UK rules. 

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