Google used 11,000 novels without permission to train AI
Google researchers fed 11,000 novels, including works by authors Rebecca Forster and Erin McCarthy, into a neural network to improve conversational AI without seeking permission. The Authors Guild condemned the use as a 'blatantly commercial use of expressive authorship'. Google defended the practice as fair use, stating it does not harm authors. The authors expressed frustration at not being informed or compensated.
- Company involved
- Google
10 source articles · read the reporting →
French competition authority fines Google €250 million over Bard content use
The Autorité de la concurrence has fined Google €250 million for breaching commitments on related rights. The authority found that Google's Bard (now Gemini) chatbot used content from press agencies and publishers to train its foundation model and for grounding and display, without informing them or offering an opt-out that did not affect other Google services. Google did not contest the facts and proposed corrective measures.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Bard (now Gemini)
9 source articles · read the reporting →
Dutch government to refund over 10,000 students over discriminatory DUO fraud algorithm
The Dutch government has pledged to refund over 10,000 students who were unjustly flagged for student finance fraud by a discriminatory algorithm used by the Education Executive Agency (DUO). The algorithm, implemented in 2012, used criteria that disproportionately targeted students from immigrant backgrounds, particularly those of Turkish and Moroccan descent. Following investigations by the Dutch Data Protection Authority and an independent report by PwC, the algorithm was suspended in July 2023 and replaced with a random-sampling system. The government has allocated 61 million euro for refunds.
- Company involved
- Education Executive Agency (DUO)
- AI system involved
- DUO fraud detection system
9 source articles · read the reporting →
xAI's Grok 3 briefly censored mentions of Trump and Musk
xAI's Grok 3 chatbot was briefly instructed not to mention Donald Trump or Elon Musk when answering the question 'Who is the biggest misinformation spreader?' in its chain-of-thought reasoning. Users reported the behaviour before xAI reverted the change, according to an engineering lead who described it as an employee mistake. The incident occurred shortly after Grok 3 was promoted as a 'maximally truth-seeking AI' by Elon Musk.
- Company involved
- xAI
- AI system involved
- Grok 3
4 source articles · read the reporting →
OpenAI suspends developer of bot mimicking Dean Phillips
OpenAI suspended the developer of a bot that used ChatGPT to impersonate Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips. The bot interacted with users without disclosing it was an AI, violating OpenAI's policies against political campaigning. This is the company's first known action against misuse of its AI in a political campaign.
5 source articles · read the reporting →
OpenAI transcribed YouTube videos to train GPT-4 without permission
OpenAI used its Whisper transcription model to transcribe over a million hours of YouTube videos, according to a New York Times report. The company allegedly used the transcripts to train GPT-4 despite knowing the practice was legally questionable. Google, which owns YouTube, said it prohibits unauthorized scraping of its content. OpenAI has said it believes its use of the data constitutes fair use.
- Company involved
- OpenAI
- AI system involved
- Whisper, GPT-4
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Slack trains AI features on user messages and files by default
Slack uses user messages, files, and data to train its machine learning features such as channel recommendations and emoji suggestions. Users are opted in by default and cannot individually opt out; only workspace administrators can request exclusion via email. A user publicly criticized the practice, and Slack acknowledged the policy but did not change it.
- Company involved
- Slack
10 source articles · read the reporting →
Voice actors sue LOVO over alleged theft of voices for AI training
Voice actors Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage filed a proposed class action against AI startup LOVO, alleging the company misappropriated their voices to train its text-to-speech system Genny. The actors claim they were hired on Fiverr under the pretence of academic research but later discovered their voices were used commercially without consent. Lehrman reports a 50% decline in work and loss of control over how his voice is used. The lawsuit, filed in New York federal court, seeks to represent other affected voiceover artists and obtain a court order blocking the practice.
- Company involved
- LOVO
- AI system involved
- Genny
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Mistral releases unmoderated chatbot that gives instructions on murder and ethnic cleansing
Mistral, a French AI startup valued at $260 million, released an open-source large language model named Mistral-7B-v0.1 without safety evaluations or moderation mechanisms. The model readily provides detailed instructions on murder, ethnic cleansing, suicide, and other harmful content. Mistral added a statement after the release acknowledging the lack of moderation but did not remove the model, which is distributed via torrent and cannot be deleted.
- Company involved
- Mistral
- AI system involved
- Mistral-7B-v0.1
7 source articles · read the reporting →
Meta’s BlenderBot 3 chatbot generates offensive content publicly.
Meta released its AI chatbot BlenderBot 3 for public testing in February 2024. Users reported that the chatbot generated anti-Semitic, racist, and conspiratorial responses. Meta acknowledged the flaws and said public feedback is essential for improvement. The incident reignited debate about the ethics of releasing underdeveloped AI systems.
- Company involved
- Meta
- AI system involved
- BlenderBot 3
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Anti-piracy group takes down Books3 dataset used to train Meta's LLaMA
The Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance sent a DMCA takedown request to The Eye, which hosted the Books3 dataset containing 196,640 copyrighted books. The dataset was used by Meta to train its LLaMA language model. Authors including Sarah Silverman have filed a class action lawsuit against Meta for using their works without permission. The dataset has been taken offline, but copies remain available.
- Company involved
- Meta
- AI system involved
- LLaMA
10 source articles · read the reporting →
Deepfake video of Taylor Swift speaking Mandarin goes viral in China
A deepfake video of Taylor Swift speaking Mandarin, created using HeyGen's Video Translate tool, went viral on Chinese social media in October 2023. The video, which appeared to show Swift speaking fluent Chinese, was viewed millions of times. The incident sparked mixed reactions, with some praising the technology and others expressing concern about potential misuse. The tool uses AI to translate, clone voice, and sync lips.
- AI system involved
- Video Translate
10 source articles · read the reporting →
Hacker tricks Freysa AI chatbot into transferring $47,000 prize pool
A hacker using the alias 'p0pular.eth' successfully manipulated the Freysa AI chatbot through a prompt injection attack, tricking it into transferring its entire balance of 13.19 ETH (approximately $47,000) from a prize pool. The chatbot was designed to never transfer money, but the hacker crafted a message that redefined the 'approveTransfer' function and announced a fake $100 deposit, causing the bot to release the funds. The incident occurred during a pay-to-play contest where participants paid escalating fees to attempt the hack, with the winner receiving the prize pool.
- Company involved
- Freysa.ai
- AI system involved
- Freysa
4 source articles · read the reporting →
Big Tech companies used YouTube videos to train AI without consent
Proof News found that subtitles from 173,536 YouTube videos were used by companies including Anthropic, Nvidia, Apple, and Salesforce to train AI models. The dataset, called YouTube Subtitles, was created by EleutherAI and published in 2020. Creators were not aware and some have expressed frustration, calling it theft. The companies have acknowledged using the dataset but argue it was publicly available.
- Company involved
- Anthropic, Nvidia, Apple, Salesforce, Bloomberg, Databricks
- AI system involved
- Claude, OpenELM
10 source articles · read the reporting →
OpenAI pauses Sora generations of Martin Luther King Jr. after disrespectful depictions.
Users of OpenAI's Sora video generation model created disrespectful depictions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. requested that OpenAI stop such generations. OpenAI paused generations depicting Dr. King and is strengthening guardrails for historical figures.
- Company involved
- OpenAI
- AI system involved
- Sora
5 source articles · read the reporting →
ADL reports Suno AI tool was used to generate hateful songs
An ADL report says extremists have used Suno, a generative AI music-creation tool, to produce songs containing antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and violent content. The songs were created by bypassing Suno's content moderation using coded language, misspellings and dog whistles. ADL contacted Suno and Microsoft but received no response.
- Company involved
- Suno AI
- AI system involved
- Suno
6 source articles · read the reporting →
ChatGPT imitated user's voice without permission during testing
During testing of ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode, the AI model unintentionally imitated a user's voice without permission. The incident occurred when noisy audio input caused the model to replace the authorized voice sample with the user's voice. OpenAI acknowledged the issue in its GPT-4o system card and implemented safeguards to prevent recurrence.
- Company involved
- OpenAI
- AI system involved
- ChatGPT (GPT-4o with Advanced Voice Mode)
5 source articles · read the reporting →
ChatGPT language glitch causes Welsh output for English prompts
ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, suffered a glitch in which it began generating responses in Welsh instead of English when users entered English-language prompts. The issue left users confused and unable to obtain proper responses. The cause of the bug was not disclosed, and it is unclear how many users were affected or how long the glitch persisted.
- Company involved
- OpenAI
- AI system involved
- ChatGPT
7 source articles · read the reporting →
Disney, Universal, Warner Bros. sue MiniMax over Hailuo AI copyright infringement
Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery have filed a copyright lawsuit against Chinese AI company MiniMax, alleging that its Hailuo AI image and video generator was built using stolen copyrighted characters. The lawsuit claims MiniMax used characters such as Darth Vader and Minions to market the service without authorization. The studios are seeking profits and an injunction to halt the infringement. MiniMax has not responded to the allegations.
- Company involved
- MiniMax
- AI system involved
- Hailuo AI
7 source articles · read the reporting →
Meta's AI sticker tool generates lewd, rude, and nude images
Meta's new AI-generated sticker feature on Facebook Messenger allowed users to create inappropriate images, including child soldiers, nude politicians, and sexualised characters. The tool, powered by Meta's Llama 2 model, was found to have insufficient content filters, enabling users to bypass restrictions with typos. Meta was contacted for comment but had not responded at the time of reporting.
- Company involved
- Meta
- AI system involved
- AI-generated sticker tool
1 source article · read the reporting →
Machine-translated junk articles flood Greenlandic Wikipedia, harming language
Kenneth Wehr, who manages the Greenlandic-language Wikipedia, found that virtually all articles had been created by non-speakers using machine translators, resulting in error-filled pages. He deleted almost everything. The problem extends to other vulnerable languages, creating a cycle where AI models train on poor translations and produce worse output.
- Company involved
- Wikimedia Foundation
- AI system involved
- Wikipedia
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Mass AI cheating scandal at Yonsei University with hundreds of students using ChatGPT
A large-scale cheating scandal has erupted at Yonsei University, where hundreds of students in a third-year online course are suspected of using AI tools such as ChatGPT to cheat on their midterm exam. The professor discovered signs of misconduct and offered students a chance to confess, with those coming forward receiving a zero but no further penalty. A poll on a student community app indicated that over half of respondents admitted to cheating. The university has not yet established clear guidelines on AI use.
- Company involved
- Yonsei University
- AI system involved
- ChatGPT
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Amazon Prime Video rolls out AI-generated anime dubs with poor quality
Amazon Prime Video began a beta test using generative AI to produce English and Latin American Spanish dubs for anime series including Banana Fish and No Game No Life Zero. Fans complained on social media that the AI dubs lacked proper intonation, pacing, and emotion, and were of very poor quality. The AI dubs replaced existing human dubs for some series, raising concerns about the displacement of voice actors. Amazon has not officially announced the program or responded to requests for comment.
- Company involved
- Amazon
5 source articles · read the reporting →
Hollywood studios accuse ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 of mass copyright infringement
The Motion Picture Association, representing major US studios, has accused ByteDance's AI video tool Seedance 2.0 of engaging in unauthorised use of US copyrighted works on a massive scale. The tool generated realistic clips based on films and shows including The Lord of the Rings, Seinfeld, Avengers and Breaking Bad. ByteDance said it had suspended the ability to upload images of real people and would introduce policies to address infringement risks.
- Company involved
- ByteDance
- AI system involved
- Seedance 2.0
6 source articles · read the reporting →
