Social media platforms are using what you create to train artificial intelligence. Here’s how to opt out.

 

OpenAI has claimed that creating ChatGPT would have been impossible without using copyrighted works. LinkedIn is using user resumes to enhance its artificial intelligence model, and Snapchat warns that if you use a certain AI feature, it might put your face in an ad.

These days, people’s social media posts—not just what they write, but also their images—are increasingly being used by companies to train their AI systems, whether users realize it or not.

For companies running AI models, social media platforms offer valuable data. What’s shared there is conversational, which is something AI chatbots consistently strive to achieve. Social media posts also include human slang that can be useful for these tools. Additionally, news feeds are generally a source of real-time information.

However, users may not be enthusiastic about their random musings, vacation photos, or regrettable selfies being freely used to build technology (and, by extension, generate profits) for multibillion-dollar corporations.

“Right now, there is a lot of fear surrounding AI—some of it well-founded and some based in science fiction. It’s essential for these platforms to be very transparent about how they will and won’t use our data to alleviate some of the concerns that this type of news generates. For me, it doesn’t feel like that has been done yet,” said David Ogiste, the founder of the marketing agency Nobody’s Cafe, who regularly posts about branding and creativity on LinkedIn. He added that he would opt out of allowing LinkedIn to use his data for AI training.

Different social platforms vary in the options they provide users to opt out of contributing to AI systems. But here’s the reality: if you’re posting content publicly online, there’s no way to be absolutely certain that your images won’t be collected by third parties for any purpose they choose.

At the very least, it’s worth being aware that this is happening. Here’s how some major social media platforms may be using your data to train and run AI models, and how (and if) you can opt out.