ByteDance dismisses intern over disruption to AI training process
Chinese technology giant ByteDance, owner of the popular TikTok platform, has dismissed one of its interns for "maliciously disrupting" the training process of an artificial intelligence (AI) model. The company firmly denied reports of alleged significant losses caused by the incident, describing some reports as "exaggerated and inaccurate".
The entire event is related to Doubao, China's most popular generative AI chatbot, which is similar to ChatGPT. As the company pointed out, the intern responsible for the disruptions was part of the commercialization technologies team but had no experience or direct contact with the team working on AI development (AI Lab).
The individual was an intern with the [advertising] technology team and has no experience with the AI Lab. Their social media profile and some media reports contain inaccuracies - ByteDance stated in its announcement.
The company also clarified that the intern's actions did not compromise operations related to large language models, which are part of their commercial online activities.
Furthermore, ByteDance debunked claims that the incident caused damages exceeding 13 million Canadian dollars, stemming from the alleged disruption of the AI training system, which uses thousands of advanced graphics processing units (GPUs).
The company emphasized that immediately after the incident was detected in August, the decision was made to dismiss the intern. In addition, his university and relevant industry bodies were informed about the situation. However, ByteDance did not provide details on the nature of the disruptions or the actual scale of any damages.
ByteDance's investments in AI development
It is worth noting that ByteDance has been actively investing in the development of AI technology for some time. Artificial intelligence is a key element of many of their projects, including chatbots like Doubao and content generation tools like Jimeng, allowing video creation based on text.
Although the incident did not affect ByteDance's key operations, it highlights the challenges associated with security and protection of developmental processes in the field of artificial intelligence, especially in companies as large as ByteDance.
