AI Tools Are Secretly Training on Real Images of Children

image via WIRED

June 10, 2024, 4:01 AM

• •Over 170 images and personal details of children from Brazil have been scraped by an open-source dataset without their knowledge or consent, and used to train AI, claims a new report from Human Rights Watch released Monday.
• •The images have been scraped from content posted as recently as 2023 and as far back as the mid-1990s, according to the report, long before any internet user might anticipate that their content might be used to train AI.
• •Human Rights Watch claims that personal details of these children, alongside links to their photographs, were included in LAION-5B, a dataset that has been a popular source of training data for AI startups.

Over 170 images and personal details of children from Brazil have been scraped by an open-source dataset without their knowledge or consent, and used to train AI. Human Rights Watch claims that personal details of these children, alongside links to their photographs, were included in LAION-5B, a dataset that has been a popular source of training data for AI startups. LAION spokesperson Nate Tyler says the organization has already taken action. “LAION-5B were taken down in response to a Stanford report that found links in the dataset pointing to illegal content on the public web,” he says, adding that the organization is currently working with “Internet Watch Foundation, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Stanford, and Human Rights Watch to remove all known references to illegal content.”

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