this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023

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The only way to avoid Grammarly using your data for AI is to pay for 500 accounts (yiffit.net)

submitted 1 year ago by soyagi@yiffit.net to c/technology@lemmy.world

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] drdabbles@lemmy.world 73 points 1 year 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.

[–] stu@lemmy.pit.ninja 36 points 1 year 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.

[–] drdabbles@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You didn't break it to me.

[–] essteeyou@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thats why I make misatkes in everyting I write. They won't have a good set too take from my comments.

We should alll (w)right wrongs like this.

[–] jcg@halubilo.social 2 points 1 year ago

Rigging wrongs by writing wrong, loivcjfrrrjdd it!

[–] Gimly@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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?

[–] stu@lemmy.pit.ninja 3 points 1 year 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.

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] drdabbles@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a native American English speaker, shit's mad hard yo.

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Native American English you say? You write-um heap good talk!

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Please read turn to page 32 of your copy of Strunk & White and recite the prayer against avoiding excess verbiage.

[–] Nioxic@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago

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

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] mark@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year 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?

[–] hellishharlot@programming.dev 15 points 1 year ago

Depending on how they're training it, they're likely looking at when grammarly corrections were accepted or rejected and the context around that. That's what I'd be using from the dataset anyhow

[–] csm10495@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Remember that people have said GPT4 is getting dumber because of interacting with humans.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago

On average, people's grammar is correct, kind of by definition.

[–] art@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year 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.

[–] sndrtj@feddit.nl 25 points 1 year 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.

[–] mysoulishome@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] keegomatic@kbin.social 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 42 points 1 year ago

Case in point, this post is the only one I’ve seen of this, so I must not be following any of the other communities/magazines the OP posted to.

[–] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 13 points 1 year 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.

[–] Mentrix@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year 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

[–] Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

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

[–] monobot@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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?

[–] gps@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Gimly@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year 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.

[–] Kinglink@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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...

[–] Canonical@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago

they have a personal use premium service, which the author already pays for.

[–] puppy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Kinglink@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] asamson23@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year 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.