"According to a recent privacy policy update to Google, the company “reserves the right to scape just about everything you post online to build its AI tools.” If Google can read your words, assume they belong to the company now, and expect that they're nesting somewhere in the bowels of a chatbot." (Sources: Slashdot and BlackHatWorld)
We all know how that "Artificial Intelligence" tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft's Bing thing, and Google Bard are here to "revolutionise" the world of technology. But what we seem to forget is that these tools require data in order to grow. And whose's data are they going to use? Yours, mine, everyone's data, with or without our consent.
It seems that since "This website uses cookies" banners started to appear (and get more invasive, like blurring the page's contents and not allowing you to view the content), we have started to blindly press the [I consent] button without reading what they might do with our consent. This action has seeped into Privacy Policy and TOS consent requests from companies and websites, which is a bad thing.
And now, with the rise of "Artificial Intelligence" tools, this gets even more terrifying -at least for me-. Most of the time, you get the usual Cookie-Privacy Policy requests when you go to use the tools, but, what happens when they go data harvesting? Do they give you a request to scrape your data? Do you own your words? Your content?
What ends up happening is that a half-ownership system comes up. Yes, theoretically those words are yours, since you came up with them. That image you made, that photo you shot last night and posted somewhere, that song you constructed in FL Studio is still yours. But, the only time I saw credits to what the tools used to make a reply to your query was in Microsoft's Bing chatbot on the Strict setting, and nowhere else. Yes, the content is yours, but some (if not, most) "AI" tools just make it seem like it is theirs, not linking sources.
Some platforms tried to do something about OC things, but weren't successful.
I do not agree with the API shenanigans platforms like Reddit, Twitter and the like came up with; but I can see why they are doing this.
They tried to keep their content private, only available to them, but they forgot that "AI" tools can scrape the sites without needing access to an API.
It wasn't effective, and some people left those platforms when those API changes came in, leading to a lack of content on them. Which is how they ultimately scored their goal, reducing what data tools could scrape.
However, the content reduction was minimalised incorrectly, in a bad way. They pushed devoted users away from them. But it seems this, result, was a side goal. Since, most of these platforms did it for money (see: Reddit API change) and not to protect OC content and their creators.
Personally, I'm going off-grid. I'll be deleting all my posts from Reddit, whilst making a public archive (for whoever cares). I do not consent on having my speech cloned by a tool, and possibly get abused like that from bad-actors.
This one Privacy Policy changed everything for me on the internet. If I could, I'd migrate to something that tries to keep my content safe. NeoCities might be safe, assuming I implement some sort of protection against this, whilst allowing data hoarders and archivers to do their job.
That's all. Just me not liking this invention which didn't provide something good, because people abuse technology. Hope I made sense.