Tech firms use ‘synthetic data’ for AI models but there’s a hidden cost

Last week the billionaire and owner of X, Elon Musk, claimed the pool of human-generated data that’s used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models such as ChatGPT has run out.

Musk didn’t cite evidence to support this. But other leading tech industry figures have made similar claims in recent months. And earlier research indicated human-generated data would run out within two to eight years.