Reddit will start charging some users for API access — bad news for AI companies

Reddit is a well-liked social networking platform the place tens of millions of individuals interact in discussions on all kinds of subjects each day. For that reason, Reddit has invaluable information that could possibly be utilized by builders for a variety of use circumstances — together with coaching AI fashions. 

Reddit is now placing a halt to that, asserting on Tuesday that it’s going to start to cost large companies for Reddit API information entry. 

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The social networking platform added a brand new “premium entry level” for third celebration customers who require “further capabilities, greater utilization limits, and broader utilization rights,” in line with the announcement. 

The brand new tier will not influence everybody, as builders and researchers who wish to use Reddit’s API for non-commercial functions akin to creating apps that assist folks use Reddit or conducting tutorial analysis can nonetheless entry it free of charge. 

The true goal of the brand new tier are the huge firms, like Google and OpenAI, who’ve used Reddit’s information to coach their generative AI fashions free of charge. 

“The Reddit corpus of information is actually invaluable,” stated Steve Huffman, founder and chief government of Reddit, in an interview with The New York Instances. “However we need not give all of that worth to a few of the largest firms on the planet free of charge.”

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The chats that happen on Reddit’s platform are extremely helpful for coaching AI chatbots as a result of they might help prepare the machine studying fashions on what human conversations seem like, which then the AI chatbots can imitate in their very own conversations. 

Twitter not too long ago made an analogous transfer by introducing API entry tiers. That is additionally considered a response to generative AI fashions utilizing its information. 

Twitter proprietor, Elon Musk, has publicly talked about his points with superior generative AI fashions. However he additionally not too long ago revealed he is engaged on his personal AI chatbot.