Google has recently updated its privacy policy, informing users that it will be using their public internet data and more to train its ChatGPT rivals. While this might raise concerns about privacy, opting out would mean severing ties with Google entirely, and much of your data has likely already been collected by the company’s AI bots.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, never sought consent to use publicly posted data from the internet during the training of its large language model. It wasn’t until later, in response to privacy and copyright questions, that OpenAI offered an option to prevent user data from reaching its servers.
OpenAI may face accountability in the future for how it trained ChatGPT, as it seemingly disregarded user privacy and copyright concerns in order to develop a sophisticated product. In comparison, Google is changing its privacy policy to collect as much data as possible for its generative AI products like Bard, SGE, and Gemini.
The challenge for Google is training its AI products with billions of users while implementing privacy policies that address the concerns associated with handling such vast amounts of data. Notably, Google Bard is not officially available throughout the European Union due to privacy issues.
In recent privacy policy updates, Google emphasized its need to collect user data from the public internet, encompassing all publicly available online content, including data unrelated to Google products. The revised policy mentions AI models instead of just language models and includes references to products like Bard and Cloud AI.
The collection of public data by ChatGPT has already influenced the internet, leading to changes in platforms like Reddit and Twitter in how they allow access to data. Internet companies are becoming aware of how generative AI systems utilize public data, and Google aims to leverage this data while it remains accessible.
Though agreeing to Google’s privacy changes may seem inevitable since the data is publicly available, it’s important not to overlook the implications of this practice. Protecting personal data not available to the public from chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard should be a priority.
Therefore, while it may be challenging to prevent generative AI products from using publicly available data, safeguarding private data from these chatbots is crucial. This includes protecting the prompts we use to interact with AI systems. As we witness the development of the future’s computers and internet, it’s essential to remain mindful of these privacy concerns.
