Google has made a significant adjustment to its privacy policy, raising concerns about the data collection practices employed by its AI technology, specifically its language model known as Bard. The updated policy now explicitly mentions the use of publicly available information to train Google’s AI models, including Bard and its Cloud AI capabilities.
Previously, the language models were used solely for training Google Translate. However, the revised policy clearly indicates that any publicly accessible content may be collected and utilized by Google’s AI. This revelation has caused some apprehension among users who may now question the extent of their online privacy.
Both Google and Microsoft’s AI, Bing, are essentially data collectors, gathering and analyzing online content from various sources to enhance their predictive capabilities in countless subject areas. While this is not a new practice, the revised privacy policy brings this fact to light in a more explicit and alarming way.
The updated policy has raised concerns beyond basic privacy issues. The potential for plagiarism becomes a pertinent issue when AI responses are driven by content obtained through Bard’s training. It is virtually impossible to police the boundaries of content usage in these scenarios. Furthermore, the broader implications of data scraping from the web on accuracy and misinformation are also under scrutiny.
Moreover, recent concerns expressed by platforms like Reddit and Twitter have shed light on the contentious topic of scraping people’s public Twitter data to build AI models. Elon Musk has stood against these practices, thereby introducing further limitations and potentially giving an advantage to competitors like Zuckerberg and Threads.
This entire domain of AI language model data-scraping is fraught with complexities and challenges. However, major tech companies are forging ahead, prioritizing their position in the race to lead this field, seemingly without full consideration for the practical implications.
In conclusion, Google’s revised privacy policy offers a transparent view of the operation of its AI technology, particularly Bard. This development has sparked concerns regarding online privacy, plagiarism, and accuracy in data collection practices. Platforms such as Reddit and Twitter have also raised objections to data scraping. As the tech giants continue to advance their language models, it remains to be seen how these issues will be addressed and navigated.
