• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, August 6, 2024

A YouTube content creator is suing Google for allegedly secretly transcribing his videos in order to train the artificial intelligence product Gemini.

“Unbeknownst to those who upload videos to YouTube, defendants have been covertly transcribing YouTube videos to create training datasets that defendants then use to train their AI products,” Massachusetts resident David Millette alleges in a class-action complaint against Google and YouTube filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Millette's complaint refers to an April 2024 report in The New York Times -- apparently the April 6 article “How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I.,” though the complaint doesn't provide the article's date or headline.

According to that report, Google revised its terms last year to allow it to use publicly available material to train artificial intelligence. The newspaper also wrote that “two people with knowledge of the company” said Google had transcribed YouTube videos to train its chatbots.

Millette alleges that Google failed to “properly obtain consent” to profit from videos that were uploaded prior to the change in terms of service.

His complaint includes a claim that Google was “unjustly enriched” by retaining revenue derived from the sale of products that were trained on videos uploaded by users.

Millette isn't the only one to sue Google over its alleged use of publicly available material to train chatbots.

The company is also facing a lawsuit claiming its alleged use of data to train artificial intelligence infringes copyright. That matter is pending before U.S. District Court Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in San Francisco.