You can opt out, but the fact that it's opt-in by default and made to look like a simple T/C update prompt leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The five year retention period seems... excessive. I wonder if they've buried anything else objectionable in the new terms.
It was the kick in the pants I needed to cancel my subscription.
Everywhere else in Anthropic's interface, yes/no switches show blue when enabled and black when disabled. In the box they're showing about this change the slider shows grey in both states: visit it in preferences to see the difference! It's not just disappointing but also kind of sad that someone went to the effort to do this.
The 5 year is the real kicker. Over the next 5 years I find it doubtful that they won't keep modifying their TOS and presenting that opt out 'option' so that all it will take is one accidental click and they have all your data from the start. Also, what is to stop them from removing the opt out? Nothing says they have to give that option. 4 years and 364 days from now TOS change with no opt out and a retention increase to 10 years. By then the privacy decline will have already have been so huge nobody will even notice that this 'option' was never even real.
it's almost like this multi billion dollar company is misanthropic, despite their platitudes. Should I not hold my breath on Anthropic helping facilitate "an era of AI abundance for all"? (To quote a rejected PR applicant to Anthropic from the front page)
I wonder what happens if I don't accept the new T&C? I've been successfully dismissing an updated T&C prompt in a popular group messaging application for years -- I lack the time and legal acumen to process it -- without issue.
Also, for others who want to opt-out, the toggle is in the T&C modal itself.
Has anyone asked why OpenAI has two very separate opt-out mechanisms (one in settings, the other via a formal request that you need to lodge via their privacy or platform page)? That always seemed likely to me to be hiding a technicality that allows them to train on some forms of user data.
OpenAIs temporary chat still advertises that chats are stored for 30 days while there is court order that everything must be retained indefinitely.
I wonder why they are not obligated to state this quite extreme retention.
The scenario that concerns me is that Claude learns unpublished research ideas from me as we chat and code. Claude then suggests these same ideas to someone else, who legitimately believes this is now their work.
Clearly commercial accounts use AI to assist in developing intellectual product, and privacy is mandatory. The same can apply to individuals.
Not a surprise. All the major players have reached the limits of training on existing data—they’re already training on essentially the whole internet plus a bunch of content they allegedly stole (hence various lawsuits). There haven’t been any major breakthroughs in model architecture from the major players recently and thus they’re now in a battle for more data to train on. They need data, and they want YOUR data, now, and are gonna do increasingly shady things to get it.
Everyone seems to be unsurprised by this move, but I’m genuinely shocked. What a shoot your own foot business decision. Google, evil though it be, doesn’t post the text of your gmails in its search results because who would consider using Gmail after that? This is the llm equivalent. Am I missing something?
TBH I’m surprised it’s taken them this long to change their mind on this, because I find it incredibly frustrating to know that current gen agentic coding systems are incapable of actually learning anything from their interactions with me - especially when they make the same stupid mistakes over and over.
I guess I'll take the other side of what most are arguing in this thread.
Isn't it a great thing for to us to collectively allow LLM's to train on past conversations? LLM's probably won't get significantly better without this data.
That said I do recognize the risk of only a handful of companies being responsible for something as important as the collective knowledge of civilization.
Is the long term solution self custody? Organizations or individuals may use and train models locally in order to protect and distribute their learnings internally. Of course costs have to come down a ridiculous amount for this to be feasible.
> That said I do recognize the risk of only a handful of companies being responsible for something as important as the collective knowledge of civilization.
It's not just the risk of irresponsible behaviour (which is extremely important in a situation with so much power imbalance)
It's also just the basic properties of monopolistic markets: the smaller the number of producers, the closer the equilibrium price of the good maximizes the producers' economic surplus.
These companies operate for-profit in a market, and so they will naturally trend toward capturing as much value as they can, at the expense of everyone else.
If every business in the world depends on AI, this effectively becomes a tax on all business activity.
This is obviously not in the collective interest.
Of course, this analysis makes simplifying assumptions about the oligopoly. The reality is much worse: the whole system creates an inherent information asymmetry. Try and imagine what the "optimal" pricing strategy is for a product where the producer knows intimate details about every consumer.
> LLM's probably won't get significantly better without this data.
Yeah and Facebook couldn't scale without ignoring the harms it causes people. Should we just let that be? Society seems to think so but I don't think it's a good idea at all.
Excellent. What were they waiting for up to now?? I thought they already trained on my data. I assume they train, even hope that they train, even when they say they don't. People that want to be data privacy maximalists - fine, don't use their data. But there are people out there (myself) that are on the opposite end of the spectrum, and we are mostly ignored by the companies. Companies just assume people only ever want to deny them their data.
It annoys me greatly, that I have no tick box on Google to tell them "go and adapt models I use on my Gmail, Photos, Maps etc." I don't want Google to ever be mistaken where I live - I have told them 100 times already.
This idea that "no one wants to share their data" is just assumed, and permeates everything. Like soft-ball interviews that a popular science communicator did with DeepMind folks working in medicine: every question was prefixed by litany of caveats that were all about 1) assumed aversion of people to sharing their data 2) horrors and disasters that are to befall us should we share the data. I have not suffered any horrors. I'm not aware of any major disasters. I'm aware of major advances in medicine in my lifetime. Ultimately the process does involve controlled data collection and experimentation. Looks a good deal to me tbh. I go out of my way to tick all the NHS boxes too, to "use my data as you see fit". It's an uphill struggle. The defaults are always "deny everything". Tick boxes never go away, there is no master checkbox "use any and all of my data and never ask me again" to tick.
That’s unfortunate. I believed Anthropic was playing the long game and betting on a smaller but more technically proficient userbase.
I guess I’ll be canceling my subscription largely out of principal. I doubt any open-source models are capable of handling my use case as well as Claude (typically focused on getting up to speed with various ISO/IEEE standards for the purpose of security testing) but I’m sure I’ll find a solution.
Why are we linking to Perplexity.ai AI-generated slop summaries of other news articles instead of the actual announcement? Reading the actual announcement is more clear : https://www.anthropic.com/news/updates-to-our-consumer-terms Some important points:
An in-app notification pop-up will alert you to the change. You can opt out in the pop up.
I was able to opt out right now by going to the Privacy section of Settings.
It doesn’t take effect until September 28th. The app will apparently prompt people to review the new terms and make a decision before then.
Only applies to new or resumed sessions if you do review the new terms and don’t turn it off. The angry comments about collecting data from customers and then later using it without permission are not correct. You would have to accept the new terms and resume an old session for it to be used.
Does not apply to API use, 3rd party services, or products like Claude Gov or Claude for Education.
Changing the link to the actual source instead of this perplexity.ai link would be far more helpful.
In my opinion, training models on user data without their real consent (real consent = e.g. the user must sign a contract or so, so he's definitely aware), should be considered a serious criminal offense.
Does this include any code base you are running Claude Code with (where parts of code are sent as part of the context)? I'm not hugely clear on how my private codebase is exposed to Claude in the first place when using Claude Code.
I didn't trust them much to begin with, so I generally avoid talking too much personal stuff with Claude. But I had plenty of chats with surface level discussion of topics I'm interested in and some of my relevant experience and history with those topics. So, I have deleted all my chats and am closing my Claude account (as soon as customer services get back to me; somehow the self-serve option is missing for my account, possibly because I once enabled API access).
I'll use Claude with my employer's Copilot account, but was I wasn't putting anything personal there anyway.
I saw the popup yesterday. Maybe I've just gotten really good at navigating dark patterns (or I have stock-home syndrome), but I remember the opt out choice being really clear and easy to select.
I'm not arguing on the facts of the modal design, I don't remember either way, I just don't remember it being confusing.
I think there is amazing signal inside the chat logs. Every idea or decision taken can be analyzed in hindsight 20 messages later, or days later. Eventually a feedback signal or outcome lands back in the chat logs. That is real world idea validation. Considering the hundreds of millions of users and their diverse tasks that collect across time - this is probably the most efficient way to improve AI. I coined it the human-AI experience flywheel.
To make it respect user privacy I would use this data for training preference models, and those preference models used to finetune the base model. So the base model never sees particular user data, instead it learns to spot good and bad approaches from feedback experience. It might be also an answer to "who would write new things online if AI can just replicate it?" - the experience of human-AI work can be recycled directly through the AI model. Maybe it will speed up progress, amplifying both exploration of problems and exploitation of good ideas.
Considering OpenAI has 700M users, and worldwide there are probably over 1B users, they generate probably over 1 trillion tokens per day. Those collect in 2 places - in chat logs, for new models, and in human brains. We ingest a trillion AI tokens a day, changing how we think and work.
I just opted out. And then canceled my plan. The 5 year retention isn't part of the opt out and represents way too juicy of a target for them. Some time in the next 5 years another TOS change will happen, and another and another and eventually there won't be an opt out or I won't realize it and accidentally click yes. Privacy first. Period. Pay me to opt in and I may consider it.
[+] [-] troad|7 months ago|reply
It was the kick in the pants I needed to cancel my subscription.
[+] [-] wzdd|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] I_am_tiberius|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnnyMarcone|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Joker_vD|7 months ago|reply
You can say that you want to opt out. What Anthropic will decide to do with your declaration is a different question.
[+] [-] monegator|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] episteme|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jmward01|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] javcasas|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] smallerfish|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] darepublic|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] kordlessagain|7 months ago|reply
As if barely two 9s of uptime wasn't enough.
[+] [-] ethagnawl|7 months ago|reply
Also, for others who want to opt-out, the toggle is in the T&C modal itself.
[+] [-] energy123|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] demarq|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nicce|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|7 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|7 months ago|reply
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[+] [-] speckx|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] perihelions|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Syzygies|7 months ago|reply
The scenario that concerns me is that Claude learns unpublished research ideas from me as we chat and code. Claude then suggests these same ideas to someone else, who legitimately believes this is now their work.
Clearly commercial accounts use AI to assist in developing intellectual product, and privacy is mandatory. The same can apply to individuals.
[+] [-] JCM9|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] superposeur|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lewdwig|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Deegy|7 months ago|reply
Isn't it a great thing for to us to collectively allow LLM's to train on past conversations? LLM's probably won't get significantly better without this data.
That said I do recognize the risk of only a handful of companies being responsible for something as important as the collective knowledge of civilization.
Is the long term solution self custody? Organizations or individuals may use and train models locally in order to protect and distribute their learnings internally. Of course costs have to come down a ridiculous amount for this to be feasible.
[+] [-] monsieurbanana|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] int_19h|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] cowpig|7 months ago|reply
It's not just the risk of irresponsible behaviour (which is extremely important in a situation with so much power imbalance)
It's also just the basic properties of monopolistic markets: the smaller the number of producers, the closer the equilibrium price of the good maximizes the producers' economic surplus.
These companies operate for-profit in a market, and so they will naturally trend toward capturing as much value as they can, at the expense of everyone else.
If every business in the world depends on AI, this effectively becomes a tax on all business activity.
This is obviously not in the collective interest.
Of course, this analysis makes simplifying assumptions about the oligopoly. The reality is much worse: the whole system creates an inherent information asymmetry. Try and imagine what the "optimal" pricing strategy is for a product where the producer knows intimate details about every consumer.
[+] [-] lacoolj|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] freejazz|7 months ago|reply
Yeah and Facebook couldn't scale without ignoring the harms it causes people. Should we just let that be? Society seems to think so but I don't think it's a good idea at all.
[+] [-] gloosx|7 months ago|reply
Who told you LLMs will get significantly better with this data? Sam Altman?
[+] [-] jimbokun|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mitthrowaway2|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ljosifov|7 months ago|reply
It annoys me greatly, that I have no tick box on Google to tell them "go and adapt models I use on my Gmail, Photos, Maps etc." I don't want Google to ever be mistaken where I live - I have told them 100 times already.
This idea that "no one wants to share their data" is just assumed, and permeates everything. Like soft-ball interviews that a popular science communicator did with DeepMind folks working in medicine: every question was prefixed by litany of caveats that were all about 1) assumed aversion of people to sharing their data 2) horrors and disasters that are to befall us should we share the data. I have not suffered any horrors. I'm not aware of any major disasters. I'm aware of major advances in medicine in my lifetime. Ultimately the process does involve controlled data collection and experimentation. Looks a good deal to me tbh. I go out of my way to tick all the NHS boxes too, to "use my data as you see fit". It's an uphill struggle. The defaults are always "deny everything". Tick boxes never go away, there is no master checkbox "use any and all of my data and never ask me again" to tick.
[+] [-] octagons|7 months ago|reply
I guess I’ll be canceling my subscription largely out of principal. I doubt any open-source models are capable of handling my use case as well as Claude (typically focused on getting up to speed with various ISO/IEEE standards for the purpose of security testing) but I’m sure I’ll find a solution.
[+] [-] Aurornis|7 months ago|reply
An in-app notification pop-up will alert you to the change. You can opt out in the pop up.
I was able to opt out right now by going to the Privacy section of Settings.
It doesn’t take effect until September 28th. The app will apparently prompt people to review the new terms and make a decision before then.
Only applies to new or resumed sessions if you do review the new terms and don’t turn it off. The angry comments about collecting data from customers and then later using it without permission are not correct. You would have to accept the new terms and resume an old session for it to be used.
Does not apply to API use, 3rd party services, or products like Claude Gov or Claude for Education.
Changing the link to the actual source instead of this perplexity.ai link would be far more helpful.
[+] [-] I_am_tiberius|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] pcwelder|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] aosaigh|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] grim_io|7 months ago|reply
To put it in perspective: google won't even give you an option to opt out.
If you pay for Gemini as a private user and not as a corporation, you are fair game for google.
Now, neither option is good. But one is still much worse.
[+] [-] the_other|7 months ago|reply
I'll use Claude with my employer's Copilot account, but was I wasn't putting anything personal there anyway.
Time to learn how to do local models...
[+] [-] ezfe|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Wowfunhappy|7 months ago|reply
I'm not arguing on the facts of the modal design, I don't remember either way, I just don't remember it being confusing.
Unless I was in some A B test?
[+] [-] aurareturn|7 months ago|reply
I think Claude saw that OpenAI was reaping too much benefit from this so they decided to do it too.
[+] [-] visarga|7 months ago|reply
To make it respect user privacy I would use this data for training preference models, and those preference models used to finetune the base model. So the base model never sees particular user data, instead it learns to spot good and bad approaches from feedback experience. It might be also an answer to "who would write new things online if AI can just replicate it?" - the experience of human-AI work can be recycled directly through the AI model. Maybe it will speed up progress, amplifying both exploration of problems and exploitation of good ideas.
Considering OpenAI has 700M users, and worldwide there are probably over 1B users, they generate probably over 1 trillion tokens per day. Those collect in 2 places - in chat logs, for new models, and in human brains. We ingest a trillion AI tokens a day, changing how we think and work.
[+] [-] lacoolj|7 months ago|reply
Having "Accept" right under that makes it very unclear what you're accepting and enabling/disabling at the same time.
For those without an account or just want to see this: https://imgur.com/a/jbhzbnB
[+] [-] jmward01|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] BoorishBears|7 months ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053806