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The only way to avoid Grammarly using your data for AI is to pay for 500 accounts (yiffit.net)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Source: https://front-end.social/@fox/110846484782705013

Text in the screenshot from Grammarly says:

We develop data sets to train our algorithms so that we can improve the services we provide to customers like you. We have devoted significant time and resources to developing methods to ensure that these data sets are anonymized and de-identified.

To develop these data sets, we sample snippets of text at random, disassociate them from a user's account, and then use a variety of different methods to strip the text of identifying information (such as identifiers, contact details, addresses, etc.). Only then do we use the snippets to train our algorithms-and the original text is deleted. In other words, we don't store any text in a manner that can be associated with your account or used to identify you or anyone else.

We currently offer a feature that permits customers to opt out of this use for Grammarly Business teams of 500 users or more. Please let me know if you might be interested in a license of this size, and I'II forward your request to the corresponding team.

all 37 comments

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[–] 73 points 3 years ago (3 children)

There is a second way, legend has it. The ancient ones tell a tale of the one that does not use the service, and does not train someone else's shitty models for free.

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  • [–] 36 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I hate to break it to you, but we're all presently training someone else's shitty models for free by commenting on Lemmy. Probably multiple organizations at some point, in fact.

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  • [–] 23 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    You didn't break it to me.

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  • [–] 24 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, when I write something public I accept that anyone can read it or use it for whatever reason. When I pay for a service then it's a bit of a grey area. When the service is free I know my data will be used to make money by any means necessary.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    You raise a very good point, people cannot be mad that companies use data that they made public to train their ai. It's public, people can do whatever they want with it. We really need to teach people to be more careful with what they post online.

    But I'm wondering, is there a default license for data posted on lemmy?

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    That would imply ownership and agency over the retention of our data, which federation kind of fundamentally cannot guarantee. An instance in the Fediverse can only guarantee the right to be forgotten on their own instance. I could see this becoming a big regulatory problem as the Fediverse grows. We're already seeing regulatory issues with CSAM, for example.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    The third way is like the second way: we learn to write good without crutches.

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    • [–] 43 points 3 years ago

    Well isnt grammerly not just a keylogger with some helpful features to put your mind at ease?

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    [–] 42 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    For anyone looking for an alternative, LanguageTool though not perfect, has shown itself to be far more privacy respecting

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    Came here to say this. I've been using LanguageTool for a while, but they've also recently started implementing AI into the product.

    Using AI itself isnt a problem if the engine they're using is completely proprietary. But they're likely using some third-party engine to send the data to. But I'd love to be proven wrong by them open sourcing the code for it so I can take a look at it myself.

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    • [–] 28 points 3 years ago

    The only way to avoid Grammarly using your data for AI is to pay for 500 accounts

    Protip: You can also simply not use grammarly.

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    [–] 27 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Let's ignore the ethical implications of this for a moment.

    Grammarly is training it's AI off of the poorly written grammar of it's users that it has to already adjust?

    It seems like this would be a flawed set of training data. It's training on what it already either produced or on something written by someone who may not have used proper grammar in the first place.

    Am I to expect this AI will improve over time?

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    • [–] 25 points 3 years ago

    Grammarly is basically a keylogger anyway, with every stroke send to their servers. Why ANY business even allows their employees to use this is really beyond me.

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    [–] 21 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Why is it necessary to post this to so many different cimmunities?

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  • [–] 33 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I see this complaint a lot but honestly I don’t quite understand what the big deal is. Not everyone is subscribed to the same communities. Personally, I’d love a feature on kbin/lemmy that rolled up duplicate posts on the client, but it’s really not that annoying for me to see a couple dupes in my feed if they’re posted in relevant communities /shrug

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  • [–] 13 points 3 years ago

    Maybe it's relevant to those community i guess, so they posted it there. I didn't see such complaint in reddit where multiple sub posted the same stuff over a few days(eg: games, gaming, pcgaming, pcmr, so on and so forth, can share the same exact news and it will appear in your feed multiple times), so not sure why it suddenly a problem in Lemmy.

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    • [–] 19 points 3 years ago

    I work in the field of data science and I really get why data is needed and why it makes sense to collect use data but enforcing this and now allowing to opt out free of charge is simply not okay

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    [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    I'm quite certain this policy is illegal in some jurisdictions (read: the European Union).

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    [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    So... grammarly is problem to help you write an email or a document you will send via gmail or publish online?

    Or you use grammarly for private diary?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Most people consider email private. Plus a lot of people use Grammarly for work documents.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    The same people will use Gmail without batting an eye and we all know what Google has been doing for years with emails in Gmail.

    It's quite funny that now that there are "AI" that everyone can use, people get all worried about their data being used to train them but nobody cared before when it was Google or amazon using them to train their models.

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    • [+] 1 point 3 years ago
    [deleted]
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    [–] -1 points 3 years ago* (2 children)

    I mean you've been using their service for free...

    Listen I get people who but they have said they train their programs based on your responses for a while. If your not paying for these services then yeah they are going to monetize and improve the service off of what you do and includes ai.

    Start paying for the services you use... And I don't mean simple ten or twelve dollar a month plans, which I'm betting she doesn't use either

    People really have gotten used to the free lunch model...

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    What do you recommend she do? Spend for 500 accounts?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Find better solutions. I found that grammarly results are similar to office. If you want to buy a product buying word versus renting grammarly would be a better choice.

    There's multiple other websites that do the same as grammarly. But if you choose to go with a free option or low cost option this happens

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    As a Québécois, one piece of software I really like is called Antidote, which does pretty much the same as Grammarly, without the online components, unless you pay for the subscription. It also works in both French and English.

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