Think of AI like a child that’s growing up. The child doesn’t know much, but the more you teach it, the smarter they become. That’s the same for AI, where the more information and data it’s being fed, the smarter it gets. However, there is the question of where that data is coming from. Unfortunately, Perplexity has landed itself in some legal trouble as Reddit has filed a lawsuit against the AI company for allegedly ripping off its content.
Reddit files lawsuit against Perplexity AI
According to the lawsuit, Reddit has been aware of data-scraping service providers who have been scraping the internet of data, which is then used to train AI models. The lawsuit also reveals that Reddit reached out to Perplexity back in May 2024, demanding that the AI company stop scraping its data.
But according to Perplexity, it did not use Reddit content to train its AI models. The company also said that it would respect Reddit’s robots.txt. However, after the letter Perplexity sent to Reddit, the company found that the volume of Reddit citations used by Perplexity actually increased. The company tested it out by creating a post that could only be crawled by Google. Within hours, Perplexity produced the contents of that post.
Reddit says, “The only way that Perplexity could have obtained that Reddit content and then used it in its ‘answer engine’ is if it and/or its Co-Defendants scraped Google SERPs for that Reddit content and Perplexity then quickly incorporated that data into its answer engine.”
Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity’s head of communication has since responded with a statement of their own. Speaking to The Verge, Dwyer said, “Perplexity has not yet received the lawsuit, but we will always fight vigorously for users’ rights to freely and fairly access public knowledge. Our approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI, and we will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest.”
Not the first time
Perplexity is not the first company to find itself in trouble after allegedly using data from other platforms to train its AI models. The New York Times has filed multiple lawsuits against AI companies such as OpenAI and even Microsoft. Large publications have also appealed to the government to stop this theft of data by AI companies.
However, not all companies are guilty of this so-called theft. Other companies, like Amazon, have inked deals with publications like the New York Times to use its data. Perplexity has also done something similar. The company might not have a deal with Reddit, but it has a deal with other publishers. This is part of its Comet Plus subscription.
For those unfamiliar, Comet Plus is a subscription priced at $5 a month. It gives users access to “premium content” from trusted publishers and journalists. From that subscription, Perplexity will give those publishers a cut.
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