TikTok owner ByteDance has dismissed an intern for “maliciously interfering” with training one of its artificial intelligence models.
The company has, however, refuted claims circulating on social media regarding the extent of the damage, calling them “exaggerations and inaccuracies.”
The incident came to light after reports about the sabotage spread over the weekend.
ByteDance clarified that the individual involved was an intern with the advertising technology team and had no experience working with the company’s AI Lab.
ByteDance, in a statement, said, “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,” the firm stated.
ByteDance emphasized that its commercial AI operations, including its large language models, were unaffected by the intern’s actions.
The company’s popular generative AI model, Doubao, similar to ChatGPT, remains the most widely used AI chatbot in China.
The company also denied reports claiming that the sabotage had caused more than $10 million in damage by disrupting a system of thousands of graphics processing units used for AI training.
ByteDance noted that the intern was fired in August, and the firm has since informed the individual’s university and relevant industry bodies about the incident.
As one of the world’s leading technology companies, ByteDance operates popular social media platforms, including TikTok and its Chinese counterpart, Douyin.
Known for its advanced algorithms, the company is heavily investing in AI technology, which it uses to power applications such as the Doubao chatbot and a text-to-video tool called Jimeng.
