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AI can't think for itself; it needs huge amounts of data to train on. When you ask generative AI a question, it creates output that resembles training data scraped from the internet. This is why every company now wants to record all of your interactions and scan your documents: they need more data!
Companies Need Your Permission to Use Your Data
Services that integrate AI based on their user data include Slack, Grammarly, and Stack Overflow, and recently, LinkedIn. Many more are following suit, so don't be surprised when your favorite app or website offers you AI functionality (at the cost of them being able to use your usage data to feed their AI models).
Fortunately, companies looking to use your conversations, documents, and other data need your permission to use it for anything other than its original purpose.
Companies are Completely Ignoring This Requirement
Unfortunately, many companies are completely ignoring this when it comes to public data. Multiple AI companies have been caught scraping public social media posts to train AI models, without the permission of the authors.
Other companies comply with data privacy regulations by quietly updating their terms of service and privacy policies, but unless you regularly review them, and delete your account when AI training stipulations are added, you're likely to be unaware that your data is now being used in this way.
Slack is nice enough to let you opt out of having your potentially sensitive conversations used to train its AI, but they don't make it easy.
Rather
than
having
a
checkbox
or
button
to
tell
them
they
can't
use
your
data
to
train
their
AI
models,
you
need
to
have
your
Slack
workspace
owner
email
their
support
team
(yes,
really).
You
need
to
drop
them
an
email
at
As with most cybersecurity and privacy concerns, your best protection is vigilance. If a product you use has AI features, there's a good chance it uses your data to power them, so hunt around in the apps settings and see what privacy invading features you can switch off (or, check their documentation to see what inconvenient way they've devised to try and discourage you from denying them your data).
Above and beyond AI, there are some quick ways you can improve your cybersecurity if you're looking to keep your data more private and secure.