Reddit sells training data to unnamed AI company ahead of IPO

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Reddit has signed a contract allowing an unnamed AI company to train its models on the site's content, according to people familiar with the matter. The move comes as the social media platform nears the introduction of its initial public offering (IPO), which could happen as soon as next month.

Reddit initially revealed the deal, which is reported to be worth $60 million a year, earlier in 2024 to potential investors of an anticipated IPO, Bloomberg said. The Bloomberg source speculates that the contract could serve as a model for future agreements with other AI companies.

Benj Edwards at Ars Technica

Properly paying for the content you're feeding into your AI" model is a huge improvement over just taking it without users' consent, but it does add yet another area of concern for users of all kinds of platforms. Whatever you write, create, or post might be fed into AI" models without you ever realising it, and while the platform you use gets paid for that, you aren't.

In any event, OSNews is not selling your comments to an AI" company, but with how old we are, there's no doubt both your comments and our stories have already found their way into countless AI" black holes.