Reddit Sues Anthropic for “Stealing” Data – AI Firms Are on Notice!

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Well, well, well… look who’s been up to no good! Reddit has slapped AI startup Anthropic with a lawsuit, accusing the cheeky company of sneaking around and “scraping” its platform without permission. What’s the charge? Using Reddit’s precious data to train its chatbot, Claude, of course! A classic case of AI getting a bit too hungry, don’t you think? 🍿

In a filing that has the courtroom buzzing, Reddit claims Anthropic accessed its data over 100,000 times after July 2024. All this, despite Anthropic’s grand public statement that they had *totally* stopped doing this shady business. Oh, the irony! 🙄

Reddit is not pleased, folks. They say that Anthropic’s actions go against the platform’s sacred user agreement and that scraping content without permission is a big no-no. And to make matters worse, they were still using Reddit’s precious data to train Claude’s big brain! 🙅‍♂️

Reddit had a little jab at Anthropic’s image, calling them “late-blooming” in the AI world—meaning, they’ve only just begun and yet they’re already playing the “rules are for fools” game. How charming. 😏

“This case is about the two faces of Anthropic,” said the lawsuit. One face is sweet, innocent, and responsible, while the other is… well, let’s just say it’s all about making money off Reddit’s content. Classic double-cross, if you ask me. 💰

Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, popped up in an interview with The Verge to remind everyone that Reddit is the *holy grail* of online conversation. “Now more than ever, people are seeking authentic human-to-human conversation,” he said. “And Reddit? Well, it’s got nearly 20 years of the real deal.” So, in other words, Reddit is sitting on a treasure trove of priceless chat gold that the AI industry can’t get enough of. 🙌

But hold your horses! Reddit isn’t just sitting back and taking this lightly. They’ve got deals in place with other AI companies, like a whopping $60 million-per-year agreement with Google. Not bad for a platform that started as a bunch of nerds discussing obscure topics, huh? 🤓

And if that wasn’t spicy enough, Reddit is going all in with a lawsuit. They’re after Anthropic for damages, restitution, and even want to stop them from using any of Reddit’s data in their products. Oh, and they’re asking for an injunction to keep Anthropic from *ever* profiting off Reddit data again. Yikes! 🔥

This lawsuit isn’t the only drama in the AI world, though. The New York Times got in on the action too, suing OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023 for using its reporting without a second thought. And, as if that wasn’t enough, Vox Media and Condé Nast joined in on the AI lawsuit party with Cohere for similar misdeeds. Lawsuits are raining down, people! ☔️

There’s a bigger conversation going on here about how much users are getting shafted in this whole digital economy. Centralized platforms are basically taking all that user-generated content (thanks for the free work, folks!) and making billions while users get… well, not much. But wait! There’s hope! Decentralized social networks like Lens Protocol and Farcaster are showing us the way forward—where you own your data and get paid for it. That’s right, users could be getting *paid* for their hard work. 💸

On the other hand, Bittensor and Ocean Protocol are building decentralized infrastructures where you can contribute data or AI models in exchange for some sweet, sweet blockchain rewards. It’s like the wild west out there, folks. 😎

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2025-06-05 09:12