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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by llama@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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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[-] platypode@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

As with any public forum, by putting content on Lemmy you make it available to the world at large to do basically whatever they want with. I don’t like AI scrapers in general, but I can’t reasonably take issue with this.

[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

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

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[-] will_a113@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

There are at least one or two Lemmy users who add a CC or non-AI license footer to their posts. Not that it’s do anything, but it might be fun to try and get the LLM to admit it’s illegally using your content.

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[-] mtchristo@lemm.ee 0 points 1 week ago

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 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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.

[-] Eheran@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

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

[-] kabi@lemm.ee 0 points 1 week ago

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 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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 -1 points 1 week 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.

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this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2024
70 points (93.8% liked)

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