YouTube videos used to train AI models? Why creators should be concerned

In June, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft’s new AI division, made a startling claim. He told CNBC’s Andrew Ross that anything one publishes on the internet becomes ‘freeware’ and that it can be copied and used to train AI models. In the last few weeks, there has been significant scrutiny and reporting on how generative AI companies may be pulling videos and transcripts from YouTube and using these creations of independent creators to train their AI models. In July, 404 Media, an online publication revealed generative AI video company Runway trained its models on thousands of videos without consent.