Reddit is suing AI startup Anthropic for using the online discussion site’s data without a licensing agreement, a new front in the battle over how artificial-intelligence companies train their models, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Reddit said the AI company unlawfully used Reddit’s data for commercial purposes without paying for it and without abiding by the company’s user data policy, according to the complaint, which was filed Wednesday in California.
“Anthropic is in fact intentionally trained on the personal data of Reddit users without ever requesting their consent,” the complaint says, alleging that Anthropic’s conduct runs counter to how it “bills itself as the white knight of the AI industry.”
Reddit, the online discussion forum where users can post anonymously and ask each other questions, has reached formal agreements with OpenAI and Google to license Reddit’s valuable human-user data.
A spokeswoman for Anthropic said the company disagrees with Reddit’s claims and will defend itself vigorously.
The Verge reported: Reddit sued Anthropic in Wednesday in San Francisco superior court, claiming that the OpenAI rival had accessed its platform more than 100,000 times since July 2024, after Anthropic allegedly said it had blocked its bots from doing so.
In the filing, Reddit calls Anthropic a “late-blooming artificial intelligence (AI) company that bills itself as the white knight of the AI industry,” alleging that “it is anything but.”
“This case is about the two faces of Anthropic: the public face that attempts to ingratiate itself into consumers consciousness with claims of righteousness and respect for boundaries and that law, and the private face that ignores any rules that interfere with its attempts to further line its pockets.”
Anthropic did not immediately provide a comment.
Engadget reported: Reddit had filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging that the AI company behind the Claude chatbot has been using its data for years without permission. The lawsuit comes after Reddit has increasingly taken a hardline stance against scrapers and companies that use its data to train AI models.
In their filing, Reddit alleges that Anthropic was training its Claude chatbot on Reddit data as early as December 2021. The lawsuit also includes a screenshot in which Claude seems to acknowledge it was trained on Reddit data.
In a statement to Engadget, a Reddit spokesperson said the lawsuit was the company’s “final option to force Anthropic to stop its unlawful practices” after repeated warnings.”
In their lawsuit, Reddit says that “Anthropic refused to engage” in discussions about licensing. “Unlike its competitors, Anthropic has refused to agree to respect Reddit users’s basic rights, including removing deleted posts from its systems,” it says.
“This case is about the two faces of Anthropic: the public face that attempts to ingratiate itself into the consumer’s consciousness with claims of righteousness and respect for boundaries and the law, and the private face that ignores any rules that interfere with its attempts to further line its pockets.”