At 20 years old, Reddit is defending its data and fighting AI with AI

The emergence of AI chatbots OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini threaten to inhale vast swaths of data from services Reddit

Reddit is defending its data

The company sued Anthropic earlier this month, alleging the AI startup "engaged in unlawful and unfair acts" by scraping subreddits for information

Reddit isn't just fending off AI

It's launched its own Reddit Answers AI service in December

A company spokesperson said that over 1 million people are using Reddit Answers each week

Spencer Platt | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesFor 20 years, Reddit has pitched itself as "the front page of the internet. " AI threatens to change that

As social media has changed over the past two decades with the shift to mobile and the more recent focus on short-form, peers MySpace, Digg and Flickr have faded into oblivion

There, Reddit users keep it old school and leave simple text s to one another their favorite hobbies, pastimes and interests

Those user-generated text s are a treasure trove that, in the age of artificial intelligence, Reddit is fighting to defend

The emergence of AI chatbots OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini threaten to inhale vast swaths of data from services Reddit

As more people turn to chatbots for information they previously went to websites for, Reddit faces a gargantuan challenge gaining new users, particularly if Google's floodgates dry up

CEO Steve Huffman explained Reddit's situation to analysts in May, saying that challenges the one AI poses can also create opportunities

While the " ecosystem is under heavy construction," Huffman said he's betting that the voices of Reddit's users will help it stand out amid the "annotated sterile answers from AI. "Huffman doubled down on that notion last week, saying on a podcast that the reality is AI is still in its infancy. "There will always be a need, a desire for people to talk to people stuff," Huffman said. "That is where we are going to be focused. "Huffman may be correct Reddit's loyal user base, but in the age of AI, many users simply "go the easiest possible way," said Ann Smarty, a marketing and reputation management consultant who helps brands monitor consumer perception on Reddit

And there may be no simpler way of finding answers on the internet than simply asking ChatGPT a question, Smarty said. "People do not want to click," she said. "They just want those quick answers. "tecting Reddit's data from AIIn a sign that the company believes so deeply in the value of its data, Reddit sued Anthropic earlier this month, alleging that the AI startup "engaged in unlawful and unfair acts" by scraping subreddits for information to imve its large language models

While book have taken companies Meta and Anthropic to court alleging that their AI models break copyright law and have suffered recent losses, Reddit is basing its lawsuit on the argument of unfair practices

Reddit's case appears to center on Anthropic's "commercial exploitation of the data which they don't own," said Randy McCarthy, head of the IP law group at Hall Estill

Reddit is defending its platform of user-generated content, said Jason Bloom, IP litigation chair at the law firm Haynes Boone

The social media company's repository of "detailed and informative discussions" are particularly useful for "training an AI bot or an AI platform," Bloom said

As many AI reers have noted, Reddit's large volume of moderated conversations can help make AI chatbots duce more natural-sounding responses to questions covering countless topics than say a university textbook

Although Reddit has AI-related data-licensing agreements with OpenAI and Google, the company alleged in its lawsuit that Anthropic has been covertly siphoning its data without obtaining permission

Reddit alleges that Anthropic's data-hoovering actions are "interfering with Reddit's contractual relationships with Reddit's users," the legal filing said

This lack of clarity regarding what is permitted when it comes to the use of data scraping for AI is what Reddit's case and other similar lawsuits are all, legal and AI experts said. "Commercial use requires commercial terms," Huffman said on The Best One Yet podcast. "When you use something — content or data or some resource — in, you pay for it. "Avishek Das | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesAnthropic disagrees "with Reddit's claims and will defend ourselves vigorously," a company spokesperson told CNBC

Reddit's decision to sue over claims of unfair practices instead of copyright infringement underscores the differences between traditional publishers and platforms Reddit that host user-generated content, McCarthy said

Bloom said that Reddit could have a valid case against Anthropic because social media platforms have many different revenue s

One such revenue is selling access to their data, Bloom said

That "enables them to sell and license that data for legitimate uses while still tecting their consumers privacy and whatnot," Bloom said

Fighting AI with AIReddit isn't just fending off AI

It launched its own Reddit Answers AI service in December, using nology from OpenAI and Google

Un general-purpose chatbots that summarize others' web pages, the Reddit Answers chatbot generates responses based purely on the social media service, and it redirects people to the source conversations so they can see the specific user s

A Reddit spokesperson said that over 1 million people are using Reddit Answers each week

Huffman has been pitching Reddit Answers as a best-of-both worlds tool, gluing together the simplicity of AI chatbots with Reddit's corpus of ary

He used the feature after seeing electronic music group Justice play recently in San Francisco. "I was, how long is this set

And Reddit could tell me it's 90 minutes 'cause somebody had already asked that question on Reddit," Huffman said on the podcast

Though investors are concerned AI negatively impacting Reddit's user growth, Seaport Senior Internet Analyst Aaron Kessler said he agrees with Huffman's sentiment that the site's original content gives it staying power

People who visit Reddit often for information things or places they may be interested in, tennis rackets or ski res, Kessler said

This user data indicates "commercial intent," which means advertisers are increasingly considering Reddit as a place to run online ads, he said. "You can tell by which page you're on within Reddit what the consumer is interested in," Kessler said. "You could bably even argue there's stronger signals on Reddit versus a Facebook or Instagram, where people may just be browsing s. "WATCH: Reddit sues Anthropic alleging wrongful use of content