TikTok owner sacks intern for sabotaging AI project
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has announced that it has dismissed an intern for “maliciously interfering” with the training of one of its artificial intelligence (AI) models.
However, the company denied claims regarding the severity of the damage caused by the individual, calling the reports “exaggerated and inaccurate.”
This statement follows social media reports over the weekend about the incident.
ByteDance’s Doubao, a generative AI model similar to ChatGPT, is the most popular AI chatbot in China.
In a statement, ByteDance clarified, “The individual was an intern with the [advertising] technology team and had no involvement with the AI Lab.”
“Their social media profile and some media reports contain inaccuracies.”
Its commercial online operations, including its large language AI models, were unaffected by the intern’s actions, the company added.
ByteDance also denied reports that the incident caused more than $10m of damage by disrupting an AI training system made up of thousands of powerful graphics processing units (GPU).
Aside from firing the person in August, ByteDance said it had informed the intern’s university and industry bodies about the incident.
ByteDance operates some of the world’s most popular social media apps, including TikTok and its Chinese-equivalent Douyin.
It is widely seen as a leader when it comes to algorithm development due to how appealing its apps are to users.
Like many of its peers in China and around the world, the social media giant is investing heavily in AI.
It uses the technology to power its Doubao chatbot as well as many other applications, including a text-to-video tool called Jimeng.
