TikTok's ByteDance fires intern for 'maliciously interfering with AI training'

Rumors spread on Chinese social media that ByteDance, the company that operates Tiktok, had lost tens of millions of dollars (about billions of yen) because an intern had corrupted its AI model, and ByteDance revealed that it had fired one intern in August 2024.

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https://www.toutiao.com/w/1813324433807370/

ByteDance intern fired for planting malicious code in AI models - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/bytedance-intern-fired-for-planting-malicious-code-in-ai-models/

According to ByteDance, the intern was part of the commercial technology team, but was fired for 'serious disciplinary violations.' 'The intern involved maliciously interfered with the model training tasks of the commercial technology team's research project,' ByteDance explained in a statement to social news media Toutiao.

According to online rumors, the intern's disciplinary violations affected more than 8,000 graphics cards, causing losses of several billion yen. However, ByteDance explained that 'this incident did not affect our official commercialization projects and online business, nor did it affect other businesses such as official commercialization projects and ByteDance's large models,' pointing out that the rumors circulating online are greatly exaggerated.

The company also claims that the intern added 'misleading information' to her social media profile, including claiming to be affiliated with an AI lab. ByteDanace denies this and says it has notified the intern's university and industry association that the information was false.

ByteDance's post on Toutiao included comments from users who doubted ByteDance's statement, saying, 'The commercial technology team he belongs to was previously under the AI lab. For the past two years, recruitment for the commercial technology team has been listed as the AI lab. He joined the team as an intern in 2021 and was likely in the most advanced department of the AI lab.'

Another user also claimed that the intern had 'intentionally disrupted the training for several months using 'malicious code,'' and pointed out that ByteDance was downplaying the damages. If ByteDance were to seek damages, the intern could face more severe penalties.

While not only AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, but also Microsoft and Apple are actively developing AI technology, ByteDance, which owns TikTok, is reportedly lagging behind in the AI development race. At an all-staff meeting, ByteDance co-founder and CEO Liang Rubo said that ByteDance has wasted years by not being sensitive enough to external changes and ignoring OpenAI's GPT development, and told all employees to 'feel a sense of crisis.' For ByteDance, whose main business is operating TikTok, improving its AI development capabilities is now an urgent issue.

According to Bloomberg, ByteDance has secured $10.8 billion in corporate financing for 2024. Most of the funding is expected to be spent on ByteDance's e-commerce services and on its goal of 'taking a big step toward developing generative AI and developing apps that provide large-scale language model-based chatbots like ChatGPT.'

In China, where the race to develop AI is intensifying, major companies such as Alibaba and Tencent are competing for AI-related talent. The intern fired by ByteDance was one of the people secured in this way, and if this incident has halted the progress of AI development, even if only temporarily, ByteDance has suffered a major blow in addition to the direct economic loss.