Reddit Sues Anthropic, Operator of the Claude AI
Reddit Sues Anthropic Over AI Training Data
Reddit has filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, a California-based artificial intelligence (AI) start-up. The social media platform accuses Anthropic of using user conversations without permission to train its generative AI models, including Claude, a language model and chatbot that competes with ChatGPT.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 4th, alleges that Anthropic trained its language models using “human” messages posted on Reddit. The legal action is based on a research paper published in December 2021 by Anthropic’s team, co-signed by the company’s head, Dario Amodei. The document mentions specific Reddit conversations that could be used to train such models, as well as content from Wikipedia.
The complaint alleges that despite Anthropic’s public statements claiming to have blocked its automated data collection systems from accessing Reddit, the company’s bots continued to connect to Reddit’s servers “more than one hundred thousand times” since July 2024.
Anthropic Responds
“We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will vigorously defend ourselves,” said an Anthropic spokesperson. Anthropic, founded in San Francisco by former OpenAI engineers, promotes the responsible development of generative AI.
“This case is about Anthropic’s two personalities: the public personality that tries to make consumers believe it is a fair company that respects limits and the law, and the private personality that mocks all the rules that hinder its attempts to enrich itself,” Reddit states in the complaint.
Reddit is seeking damages and an injunction to force Anthropic to comply with its user agreement. Since Reddit’s IPO in 2024, the agreement prohibits the use of data from Reddit discussions without a signed agreement with the platform.
Reddit, which reported 97.2 million daily active users in October 2024, has already entered into licensing agreements with other generative AI giants, including Google and OpenAI. These agreements allow these firms to use Reddit content under conditions that protect users’ confidential information and provide financial compensation to the platform.
With AFP
Enjoyed this post by Thibault Helle? Subscribe for more insights and updates straight from the source.
