Reddit CEO wants Microsoft and others to pay up or stop using its content to train AI: All you need to know

Reddit is not happy about companies, including Microsoft using its content to train AI. Here's what Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO said.

Reddit isn't happy about companies using its content to train AI bots. (REUTERS)

Reddit Bans Microsoft: If you are a social media platform like Reddit, you would likely not want any search giant to snoop on your content and train its AI without compensation. And this is exactly what Reddit has made clear to Microsoft, Anthropic and others, after it reportedly blocked search engines, including Microsoft Bing, from accessing its content. 

Here's What Reddit CEO Steve Huffman Said

“Without these agreements, we don't have any say or knowledge of how our data is displayed and what it's used for, which has put us in a position now of blocking folks who haven't been willing to come to terms with how we'd like our data to be used or not used,” Huffman said in an interview this week,” Huffman said as per a report by The Verge. He added,”We've had Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity act as though all of the content on the internet is free for them to use.”

Huffman was also vocal about the difficulties in preventing companies from scraping its data.

For those not familiar, Reddit recently changed its policy to prohibit search companies from capturing data on Reddit without compensation. Currently, Google reportedly has legal access to Reddit's content, as it signed a $60 million deal, according to Bloomberg. This gives the search giant access to Reddit posts and comments.

Generative AI Companies Have Been Infamous for Using Third-Party Content to Train Their AI Models

This issue isn't limited to Reddit; many creators and publishers have repeatedly expressed disappointment when AI models were found to be trained using content they did not own or have permission to use.

For instance, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has been engaged in a legal battle with the publisher The New York Times, wherein The New York Times alleged that millions of articles from its website were used to train OpenAI chatbots, and that this has made the AI giant a rival.