Reddit, the social news behemoth, has taken legal action against AI startup Anthropic, alleging breach of contract and unfair competition.
According to CNBC, in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco’s federal court, Reddit accused Anthropic of illicitly harvesting user data from its platform without consent to train AI models. The social media giant argues this constitutes illegal activity driven by commercial interests.
Reddit’s complaint pulls no punches, labeling Anthropic as a “late-blooming artificial intelligence (AI) company” that flouted Reddit’s rules and exploited user content at will, contradicting its carefully crafted public image.
In the wake of ChatGPT’s debut, the generative AI market has experienced explosive growth, catapulting Reddit into the spotlight as a goldmine for AI training data. While Reddit has inked data-sharing deals with OpenAI and Google, Anthropic allegedly helped itself to Reddit’s data treasure trove without any such agreement.
Reddit emphasized that while the AI industry’s major players respect their guidelines, Anthropic chose to ignore them. The lawsuit aims to compel Anthropic to adhere to its contractual and legal obligations, with Reddit also seeking damages.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, is a former Reddit board member and still holds a significant stake in the company, currently valued at over 1 billion USD.