On April 19th, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter that they intend to sue Microsoft for "illegally" training their artificial intelligence (AI) on Twitter data.
The allegations arose in response to a report that Microsoft will no longer support Twitter on their online social advertising tools, Smart Campaigns and Multi-platform, starting April 25th. Musk claimed that Microsoft's AI was trained using Twitter data that was illegally mined, and further implied that the company is removing ads and then selling users' data to third parties.
While Microsoft has yet to provide an explanation for the cessation of Twitter support, Wired reported in March that Twitter's API fees have risen astronomically, from $0 to upwards of $200,000 per month in some cases. Musk went on to accuse Microsoft of "demonetising" Twitter data by removing advertisements, thus implying that the company is profiting from users' data without their consent.
This move by Microsoft means that their customers will lose access to Twitter accounts through their tools, and will be unable to create, manage, view, and schedule Tweets. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn will still be available to Microsoft customers.
In response to the rising development costs for in-house and OpenAI projects, Microsoft is reportedly developing their own AI chips to power ChatGPT.
As AI technology continues to evolve, concerns over the legality and ethics of data usage will likely increase.
We will keep a close eye on this lawsuit and any further developments in the field of AI technology.
