Over the weekend, Google updated its privacy policy to allow the company to collect and analyze information people share online to train its AI models.
Google says it will use this information to improve its services and develop new AI-powered products.
A Shift from “Language” Models To “AI” Models
The updated policy marks a clear shift from Google’s previous terms of service.
Before this weekend’s update, Google’s policy said it used people’s data to improve “language” models.
Now, Google reserves the right to use people’s data to improve all its “AI” models and products, including translation systems, systems that generate text, and cloud AI services.
Google highlights the changes in its privacy policy archive page (green represents newly added information): Typically, privacy policies restrict companies to collecting data that users provide directly. With Google’s new policy, the company can use any information people post publicly online.
Privacy Concerns
Using AI systems to analyze people’s online posts raises privacy concerns.
AI technologies such as Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT may be taking in and reusing people’s posts, reviews, and other online content.
Although anything posted publicly online can be seen by anyone, how that information might be used is changing. The main concern is shifting from who can access the data to how it could be utilized.
Moreover, the legality of this data collection method is still up in the air.
As we move forward, expect courts to grapple with complex copyright issues.
Web Scraping
The issue of web scraping has caught the attention of high-profile tech figures like Elon Musk, who has been vocal about his concerns, even blaming several recent Twitter mishaps on the platform’s efforts to prevent data extraction.
