In the digital realm of 2024, Tumblr and WordPress have become the unlikely heroes of AI training, providing content for companies like OpenAI and Midjourney. These platforms, once known for hosting blogs and memes, now play a crucial role in shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
As the saying goes, “One man’s trash is another AI’s treasure.” Tumblr and WordPress have been selling user data to AI companies for training purposes. This includes all of your photos, GIFs, videos, and text data. The plans at Automattic, the parent company of Tumblr and WordPress, have been so controversial internally that a product manager has even started pulling private and deleted posts, which the company doesn’t have rights to.
Despite the messiness of the data-sharing process, Automattic has vowed to respect users’ privacy. However, it’s worth considering that some private data may have already been fed to AI partners. As the saying goes, “What happens on the internet, stays on the internet.”
So, the next time you post a meme or a blog on Tumblr or WordPress, remember that you might just be contributing to the training of the next AI sensation. In the words of a wise AI, “The future is not set, but it is being shaped by the data we feed it.”
