Reddit Inc. sued artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, saying it has used the social media company’s content without permission to train its AI models.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that Anthropic attempted to access Reddit data more than 100,000 times since last July. Reddit said this “unauthorized commercial use of its content” has breached its rules and exploited users’ personal data without their consent.

An Anthropic spokesperson said the company disagrees “with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously,” The AI firm, which was started by a group of ex-OpenAI employees, has taken a public position of being more oriented toward safety and responsibility than some of its competitors.

Reddit, a San Francisco-based social media platform, called Anthropic’s emphasis on trust and honesty “empty marketing gimmicks.” The AI startup “bills itself as the white knight of the AI industry,” yet “it is anything but,” Reddit said in the lawsuit.

“We believe in an open internet — that doesn’t mean open for commercial exploitation,” Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, said in an email. “We will not tolerate profit-seeking entities like Anthropic commercially exploiting Reddit content for billions of dollars without any return for redditors or respect for their privacy.”

In an interview, Lee said Reddit held several conversations with Anthropic in an effort to reach a licensing agreement, as it has with other AI companies such as OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Lee said he was optimistic about reaching a deal until recently and views the lawsuit as the company’s final option to force Anthropic back to the bargaining table.

Reddit would prefer to reach an agreement outside of court, Lee said, as the legal process could be lengthy.

This suit is among a flurry of high-profile complaints against AI companies, including Meta Platforms Inc. and OpenAI, over claims of unauthorized use of copyrighted material to train their generative AI models.

In March, a New York federal judge ruled that a copyright infringement suit brought by the New York Times and other newspapers can move forward against OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged unauthorized use of news articles to train chatbots and other AI tools. The newspapers are seeking billions of dollars in damages as compensation for unlawful use of their copyrighted content.

The case is Reddit Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, CGC-25-625892, California Superior Court, San Francisco County.

(With assistance from Malathi Nayak.)

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