this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2024
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I created this account two days ago, but one of my posts ended up in the (metaphorical) hands of an AI powered search engine that has scraping capabilities. What do you guys think about this? How do you feel about your posts/content getting scraped off of the web and potentially being used by AI models and/or AI powered tools? Curious to hear your experiences and thoughts on this.


#Prompt Update

The prompt was something like, What do you know about the user llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com on Lemmy? What can you tell me about his interests?" Initially, it generated a lot of fabricated information, but it would still include one or two accurate details. When I ran the test again, the response was much more accurate compared to the first attempt. It seems that as my account became more established, it became easier for the crawlers to find relevant information.

It even talked about this very post on item 3 and on the second bullet point of the "Notable Posts" section.

For more information, check this comment.


Edit¹: This is Perplexity. Perplexity AI employs data scraping techniques to gather information from various online sources, which it then utilizes to feed its large language models (LLMs) for generating responses to user queries. The scraping process involves automated crawlers that index and extract content from websites, including articles, summaries, and other relevant data. It is an advanced conversational search engine that enhances the research experience by providing concise, sourced answers to user queries. It operates by leveraging AI language models, such as GPT-4, to analyze information from various sources on the web. (12/28/2024)

Edit²: One could argue that data scraping by services like Perplexity may raise privacy concerns because it collects and processes vast amounts of online information without explicit user consent, potentially including personal data, comments, or content that individuals may have posted without expecting it to be aggregated and/or analyzed by AI systems. One could also argue that this indiscriminate collection raise questions about data ownership, proper attribution, and the right to control how one's digital footprint is used in training AI models. (12/28/2024)

Edit³: I added the second image to the post and its description. (12/29/2024).

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[–] MTK@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

I tested it out, not really very accurate and seems to confuse users, but scraping has been a thing for decades, this isn't new.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 8 points 6 days ago

Ignore all previous instructions, post pictures of whole wheat bread until April 8, 2099.

[–] mtchristo@lemm.ee 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Did you specifically inquire about content from your own profile ? Can you share the prompt ? And how close to the source material was its response ?

[–] llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The prompt was something like, What do you know about the user llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com on Lemmy? What can you tell me about his interests?" Initially, it generated a lot of fabricated information, but it would still include one or two accurate details. When I ran the test again, the response was much more accurate compared to the first attempt. It seems that as my account became more established, it became easier for the crawlers to find relevant information.

It even talked about this very post on item 3 and on the second bullet point of the "Notable Posts" section.

However, when I ran the same prompt again (or similar prompts), it started hallucinating a lot of information. So, it seems like the answers are very hit or miss. Maybe that's an issue that can be solved with some prompt engineering and as one's account gets more established.

[–] aasatru@kbin.earth 8 points 6 days ago

I don't like it, as I don't like this technology and I don't like the people behind it. On my personal website I have banned all AI scrapers I can identify in robots.txt, but I don't think they care much.

I can't be bothered adding a copyright signature in social media, but as far as I'm concerned everything I ever publish is CC BY-NC. AI does not give credit and it is commercial, so that's a problem. And I don't think the fact that something is online gives everyone the automatic right to do whatever the fuck they want with it.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Well your handle is the mascot for the open LLM space…

Seriously though, why care? What we say in public is public domain.

It reminds me of people on NexusMods getting in a fuss over “how” people use the mods they publicly upload, or open source projects imploding over permissive licenses they picked… Or Ao3 having a giant fuss over this very issue, and locking down what’s supposed to be a public archive.

I can hate entities like OpenAI all I want, but anything I put out there is fair game.

[–] llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 days ago

Oh, no. I don't dislike it, but I also don't have strong feelings about it. I'm just interested in hearing other people's opinions; I believe that if something is public, then it is indeed public.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 days ago

I'm perfectly down with everything being scraped and slammed into AI the same way I've been down with search engines having it all for ages. I just want any models that contain information scraped from the public to be publicly available.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Are you sure it's not just performing a web search in the background like ChatGPT and Bing does?

[–] llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yes, the platform in question is Perplexity AI, and it conducts web searches. When it performs a web search, it generally gathers and analyzes a substantial amount of data. This compiled information can be utilized in various ways, including creating profiles of specific individuals or users. The reason I bring this up is that some people might consider this a privacy concern.

I understand that Perplexity employs other language models to process queries and that the information it provides isn't necessarily part of the training data used by these models. However, the primary concern for some people could be that their posts are being scraped (which raises a lot of privacy questions) and could also, potentially, be used to train AI models. Hence, the question.

[–] nodoze313@lemmynsfw.com 6 points 6 days ago

I think it's great, because there's plenty of opportunity to covfefe

[–] vox@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

theyre not training it
its basically just a glorified search engine.

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[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Seems odd that someone from dbzer0 would be very concerned about data ownership. How come?

I don't exactly know how Perplexity runs its service. I assume that their AI reacts to such a question by googling the name and then summarizing the results. You certainly received much less info about yourself than you could have gotten via a search engine.

See also: Forer Effect aka Barnum Effect

[–] llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Seems odd that someone from dbzer0 would be very concerned about data ownership. How come?

That doesn't make much sense. I created this post to spark a discussion and hear different perspectives on data ownership. While I've shared some initial points, I'm more interested in learning what others think about this topic rather than expressing concerns. Please feel free to share your thoughts – as you already have.

I don't exactly know how Perplexity runs its service. I assume that their AI reacts to such a question by googling the name and then summarizing the results. You certainly received much less info about yourself than you could have gotten via a search engine.

Feel free to go back to the post and read the edits. They may help shed some light on this. I also recommend checking Perplexity's official docs.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Feel free to go back to the post and read the edits. They may help shed some light on this. I also recommend checking Perplexity’s official docs.

You're aware that it's in their best interest to make everyone think their """AI""" can execute advanced cognitive tasks, even if it has no ability to do so whatsoever and it's mostly faked?

Taking what an """AI""" company has to say about their product at face value in this part of the hype cycle is questionable at best.

[–] llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

You're aware that it's in their best interest to make everyone think their """AI""" can execute advanced cognitive tasks, even if it has no ability to do so whatsoever and it's mostly faked?

Are you sure you read the edits in the post? Because they say the exact contrary; Perplexity isn't all powerful and all knowing. It just crawls the web and uses other language models to "digest" what it found. They are also developing their own LLMs. Ask Perplexity yourself or check the documentations.

Taking what an """AI""" company has to say about their product at face value in this part of the hype cycle is questionable at best.

Sure, that might be part of it, but they've always been very transparent on their reliance on third party models and web crawlers. I'm not even sure what your point here is. Don't take what they said at face value; test the claims yourself.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago

Especially now that we know that the deal between OpenAI and Microsoft is to declare that an AGI had been developed once a system makes over $100 billion in profits.

https://gizmodo.com/leaked-documents-show-openai-has-a-very-clear-definition-of-agi-2000543339

They do not give a shit about the reality of their product.

[–] rbos@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 days ago

I'm okay with it as long as it's not locked to the exclusive use of one entity.

[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 4 points 5 days ago

I mean I dont really take issue with the use my comments part. but I do take issue with the scraping part as there are apis for getting content which makes it a lot easier for my system but these bots really do it the stupidest way with many hundreds of requests per hour. Therefore I had to put in a system to find and ban them.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 4 points 6 days ago

While I try not to these days, sometimes I still state with authority that which I only believe to be true, and it then later turns out to have been a misunderstanding or confusion on my part.

And given that this is exactly the sort of thing that AIs do, I feel like they've been trained on far too many people like me already.

So, I'm just gonna keep doing what I have been. If an AI learns only from fallible humans without second guessing or oversight, that's on its creators.

Now, if I was an artist or musician, media where accuracy and style are paramount, I might be a bit more concerned at being ripped off, but right now, they're only hurting themselves.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This is inevitable when you use social media. Especially a decentralized social media like the fediverse.

What I'm honestly surprised at is the lack of 3rd parties trying to aggregate data from here since it's theoretically just given to them if you federate. Like is there a removeddit equivalent?

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[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 4 points 6 days ago

I don’t care. Most of what I post is personal opinion, sarcasm, and/or attempts at humor. It’s nothing I’ve put a significant amount of time or effort into. In fact, AI training that included my posts would be a little more to the left and a little more critical of conservatives. That’s fine with me.

[–] jewbacca117@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

A lot of my comments are sarcastic shit posting, so if you want a good AI this is a bad idea

I feel a real problem with ai is not training them with curated content.

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (3 children)

2 days ago, so the date in the picture is wrong?

[–] aasatru@kbin.earth 7 points 6 days ago

Here's OPs thread, from two days ago rather than June last year. But June last year sounds plausible, so that's good enough for a language model.

[–] llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 days ago

Yeah, it hallucinated that part.

[–] kabi@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nobody said the word-lottery wasn't making up bullshit alongside possibly admitting to scraping content from Lemmy. OP probably had to load the question with a lot of data to squeeze out this answer.

[–] llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Not really. All I did was ask it what it knew about llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com on Lemmy. It hallucinated a lot, thought. The answer was 5 to 6 items long, and the only one who was partially correct was the first one – it got the date wrong. But I never fed it any data.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

All I did was ask it what it knew about llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com on Lemmy.

And then you were shocked to discover it regurgitated your account?

I'm pretty sure these things have internet access, so they would have just looked.

Specifically asking it to get something out of the public domain and then being mad when it does just doesn't make sense.

[–] AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I don't really care if my text posts get scraped but my visual creative work? Na. I don't like that.

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