On September 5, in San Francisco, a legal firm filed a class-action lawsuit against tech giants OpenAI and Microsoft. This lawsuit represents an anonymous pair of engineers and claims that both companies have been using web scraping techniques to gather private data from internet users. They allegedly use this data for training their artificial intelligence (AI) models, like ChatGPT.
The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft are using the private data of millions of internet users, including children, without their knowledge or consent. They are accused of using this data for developing and promoting various AI products like ChatGPT-3.5, ChatGPT-4.0, Dall-E, and Vall-E. Additionally, the suit claims that OpenAI has increased its data collection efforts since its 2019 restructuring, employing automated bots called "crawlers" to gather information from the internet.
OpenAI and Microsoft have faced legal challenges related to data privacy issues before. In June, they were sued for allegedly collecting data from ChatGPT users without proper authorization. The lawsuit claimed that OpenAI had improperly gathered data through third-party apps such as Snapchat and Stripe, violating several state privacy regulations and the Federal Electronic Privacy Communications Act.
The issue is not limited to OpenAI and Microsoft. Tech giant Google has also faced similar allegations in the past. It was accused of misusing large volumes of personal information and copyrighted material to train its AI systems. Since last year, the growing AI industry has seen several companies, including Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI, being accused of misusing both personal and copyrighted data.
The data being stolen is not limited to any particular type of information and ranges from dating website photos to Spotify playlists and TikTok videos. This raises significant concerns about user privacy and data protection, casting a shadow over the ethics of data collection practices in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence.
Also read - Stay Connected with Daily Crypto News and Digital Currency Updates!
