{"id":90806,"date":"2025-08-22T05:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T05:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=90806"},"modified":"2025-08-22T05:34:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T05:34:00","slug":"hundreds-of-thousands-of-grok-chats-exposed-in-google-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=90806","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of thousands of Grok chats exposed in Google results"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hundreds of thousands of user conversations with Elon Musk\u2019s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok have been exposed in search engine results \u2013 seemingly without users\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n

Unique links are created when Grok users press a button to share a transcript of their conversation \u2013 but as well as sharing the chat with the intended recipient, the button also appears to have made the chats searchable online.<\/p>\n

A Google search on Thursday revealed it had indexed nearly 300,000 Grok conversations.<\/p>\n

It has led one expert to describe AI chatbots as a \u201cprivacy disaster in progress\u201d.<\/p>\n

The BBC has approached X for comment.<\/p>\n

The appearance of Grok chats in search engine results was first reported by tech industry publication Forbes,\u00a0which counted more than 370,000\u00a0user conversations on Google.<\/p>\n

Among chat transcripts seen by the BBC were examples of Musk\u2019s chatbot being asked to create a secure password, provide meal plans for weight loss and answer detailed questions about medical conditions.<\/p>\n

Some indexed transcripts also showed users\u2019 attempts to test the limits on what Grok would say or do.<\/p>\n

In one example seen by the BBC, the chatbot provided detailed instructions on how to make a Class A drug in a lab.<\/p>\n

It is not the first time that peoples\u2019 conversations with AI chatbots have appeared more widely than they perhaps initially realised when using \u201cshare\u201d functions.<\/p>\n

OpenAI recently rowed back an \u201cexperiment\u201d which saw ChatGPT conversations appear in search engine results when shared by users.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson told BBC News at the time it had been \u201ctesting ways to make it easier to share helpful conversations, while keeping users in control\u201d.<\/p>\n

They said user chats were private by default and users had to explicitly opt-in to sharing them.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Meta faced criticism after shared users conversations with its chatbot Meta AI\u00a0appeared in a public \u201cdiscover\u201d feed on its app.<\/p>\n

\u2018Privacy disaster\u2019<\/h2>\n

While users\u2019 account details may be anonymised or obscured in shared chatbot transcripts, their prompts may still contain \u2013 and risk revealing \u2013 personal, sensitive information about someone.<\/p>\n

Experts say this highlights mounting concerns over users\u2019 privacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI chatbots are a privacy disaster in progress,\u201d Prof Luc Rocher, associate professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, told the BBC.<\/p>\n

They said \u201cleaked conversations\u201d from chatbots have divulged user information ranging from full names and location, to sensitive details about their mental health, business operations or relationships.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce leaked online, these conversations will stay there forever,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Carissa Veliz, associate professor in philosophy at Oxford University\u2019s Institute for Ethics in AI, said users not being told shared chats would appear in search results is \u201cproblematic\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur technology doesn\u2019t even tell us what it\u2019s doing with our data, and that\u2019s a problem,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"HundredsHundreds of thousands of user conversations with Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok have been exposed in search engine results – seemingly without users’ knowledge.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4618,3172,10,9,2139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google","category-grok","category-politics","category-popular","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}