Key Takeaways
- Tian Keyu, a former intern, is being sued by ByteDance for $1.1 million for allegedly sabotaging AI.
- Tian is charged with changing code to interfere with AI model training.
- The complaint comes at the same time as ByteDance is still fighting a possible TikTok ban in the United States.
The parent firm of TikTok, ByteDance, has sued a former intern, claiming that the intern hacked the company’s AI large language model training infrastructure and demanded $1.1 million in damages.
Tian Keyu, a postgraduate student at Peking University, was listed as the defendant in the lawsuit, which was filed in Beijing’s Haidian District People’s Court, according to Reuters.
According to ByteDance, Tian purposefully interfered with the company’s AI training activities by altering the code without authorization.
When ByteDance disclosed in October that company had fired an intern in August for willfully meddling with their AI project, the issue became public knowledge.
Following the event, there were rumors that data valued at millions of dollars had been lost, affecting over 8,000 graphics processing units.
ByteDance has taken the unprecedented step of suing the former intern for significant damages, underscoring the seriousness of the claimed AI infrastructure attack, even if at first it downplayed the event and called the statistics “seriously exaggerated.”
ByteDance, which is currently valued at $300 billion, has been investing more in artificial intelligence. The business recently declared that it would increase its attempts to create its own chips and that it would work with TSMC to mass-produce two by 2026.
Furthermore, TikTok, the company’s social media division, has introduced AI avatars to compete with Instagram and Snapchat.
ByteDance is currently involved in a legal dispute with the U.S. government over a bill that would require TikTok to sell or risk a nationwide ban, so in addition to this case, the business is expected to face another in the US in the months to come.
