Reddit has decided to modify the terms of use of its API, thanks to which AIs like ChatGPT access the content of its forums. AIs will now have to pay to use data from the social network that plays an important role in their responses.
For a few months, it was the frantic race in the AI, without brake or barrier. Voices were quickly raised to denounce the unauthorized use by AIs of their work. Thus, artists have sued IA Midjourney and Stable Diffusion for copyright infringement. Now it’s Reddit’s turn to protect itself from chatbots.
Reddit has announced new terms of service for its API, which will prevent content from its forums from being used to train artificial intelligences working with Large Language Models (LLMs). The ability of chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard to provide effective answers depends on access to data on the internet, among which the Reddit forums occupy an important place. The social network now plans to place them behind a paywall.
Reddit is building a new API that’s more restrictive on AI
Available since 2008, the Reddit API was until now quite open and allowed developers to do almost anything they wanted with it. For example, to create tools for moderating subreddits, browsing clients on Reddit and facilitating research on the site. Reddit plans to keep the API free for most of these use cases, but not for learning AIs.
The new terms of service apply to developers who use its APIs in a way that requires “broader usage rights“. This means that those using Reddit’s API for commercial purposes, such as LLM training, will not automatically obtain a developer license and will instead need to complete “a separate agreement with Reddit“. Reddit has not yet specified how much it plans to charge companies that use its data for commercial purposes.
After the unbridled race of the last few months, the planet is starting to react to the ultra-fast evolutions of ChatGPT, which is driving the counters crazy and breaking all records with its number of visits. It was first Italy that put the first stop, simply blocking ChatGPT. Private players are getting into it now like Reddit. After all, ChatGPT and the like are only thieves of content created and owned by others. Chatbots do not invent anything, they only aggregate data in a structured and hierarchical way in their answers.
