Source: https://front-end.social/@fox/110846484782705013

Text in the screenshot from Grammarly says:

We develop data sets to train our algorithms so that we can improve the services we provide to customers like you. We have devoted significant time and resources to developing methods to ensure that these data sets are anonymized and de-identified.

To develop these data sets, we sample snippets of text at random, disassociate them from a user’s account, and then use a variety of different methods to strip the text of identifying information (such as identifiers, contact details, addresses, etc.). Only then do we use the snippets to train our algorithms-and the original text is deleted. In other words, we don’t store any text in a manner that can be associated with your account or used to identify you or anyone else.

We currently offer a feature that permits customers to opt out of this use for Grammarly Business teams of 500 users or more. Please let me know if you might be interested in a license of this size, and I’II forward your request to the corresponding team.

    • nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de
      28·
      1 year ago

      I am perfectly fine with providing training data for AI, and have actually spent hours contributing to various projects. However, it is super scummy for a company to collect and use sensitive user data (literally a keylogger) not only without any form of communication or consent, but where the only way to opt out is to pay.

    • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
      22·
      1 year ago

      Stuff like this should always be opt-in. It looks better on the company and builds trust.

      Ideally, offer payment for users who opt-in to have their writing scraped and used to train AI.

      Seems like this could easily be a win-win situation if they gave it a few seconds of thought.

      • foo@programming.dev
        62·
        1 year ago

        That’s basically what people said about:

        • mobile phones
        • The web
        • computers
        • calculators

        I’d also argue that the customers of grammarly want this because they are paying for it. At least In the extension or app

    • MrSqueezles@lemm.ee
      17·
      1 year ago

      Uhh umm… You are the product! Aaand… Shill for greedy corporations!

      I remember when Google said quite openly that they’d give us email addresses with more storage than we’d ever dreamed for life and in return, they’d scan the first few sentences of all messages and use them to target ads at us and we were all like, “Sounds fair.”