Runway AI, a multi-billion dollar company, has been training its AI video tool, Gen-3, on thousands of YouTube videos without permssion, 404 Media has revealed. Among the videos used were over 1,600 from tech influencer Marques Brownlee (MKBHD).
The exposé follows an investigation by Proof News, copublished with Wired, which found that tech firms including Apple, Anthropic, Nvidia, and Salesforce had training their AI systems on subtitle data from more than 170,000 YouTube videos.
Runway Secretly Trained On YouTube Videos
In June, Runway AI launched Gen-3, initially called Jupiter, which received high praise for its advanced AI features.
However, an internal spreadsheet obtained by 404 Media revealed that the training data included thousands of YouTube videos from major media outlets like Pixar, Disney, and Netflix.
Content from influential creators such as Casey Neistat, Sam Kolder, and Marques Brownlee were also found among the training data.
When TechCrunch inquired about the origins of Gen-3’s training data, Runway co-founder Anastasis Germanidis claimed the use of “curated, internal datasets.”
Yet, the spreadsheet showed that Runway scraped these videos using YouTube-DL, an open-source software, and proxies to avoid detection by YouTube.
Ethical Concerns and Industry Implications
Runway’s covert use of YouTube videos raises significant ethical and legal concerns. Google, which owns YouTube and is also an investor in Runway, pointed to their policies that prohibit such practices.
A Google spokesperson reiterated to 404 Media that using YouTube videos for AI training without permission violated YouTube’s terms of service.
The AI and content creation communities have expressed outrage and concern over these revelations.
“Well well well. Runway AI video generator was trained on YouTube videos without permission, including 1600+ MKBHD videos,” Brownlee wrote on Twitter.
Despite the backlash, Runway has remained silent, not responding to multiple requests for comment.
Feature Image Credit: Marques Brownlee / MKBHD
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