For many workers, LinkedIn is a great source for job hunting, networking, and endless ‘inspirational’ posts to like but never actually read (you know the ones).
Now it seems that LinkedIn is following in the footsteps of ChatGPT and Facebook, by using your personal data to train its AI.
If you don’t like the sound of that, we’ll walk you through the steps on how to stop it.
LinkedIn Training AI on Your Data
LinkedIn is the latest platform that is looking to feed its AI systems with user data. It’s a trend that is rife in the industry right now – AI models crave huge amounts of data, and users can provide this data, at no extra cost to the company.
LinkedIn’s own AI features include a writing assistant and it’s ‘LinkedIn Premium‘ offering, which essentially uses AI to offer a high level of personalization.
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The data up for grabs on your LinkedIn account for its AI to be trained on, includes your profile information, as well as any content in posts you make.
The good news is that you can turn off this permission. The bad news is that it’s on by default, so there’s a chance that your data may have already been used to train LinkedIn’s AI model.
How to Stop LinkedIn Training 0n Your Data
If you want to put a stop to any of your data being used for future AI training, then you’ll need to toggle off the permissions option. It’s a bit buried in the LinkedIn settings, so to save you time, here’s the direct link. You’ll need to be logged in to your LinkedIn account to see the option.
You’ll find this setting, and you’ll want to turn it to ‘off’.
This step doesn’t put a complete stop to LinkedIn using your data for AI purposes. It only stops the use of your information for content creation training. If you would like to ensure that LinkedIn isn’t using your data for anything AI related, you’ll need to fill out the Data Processing Objection Form, which can be found here.
If you want more information about the sort of data that LinkedIn is scraping, and what it’s doing with it, the company has published FAQs on the topic in the past week.
If you’re worried about the impact that denying access to your data might have on using LinkedIn’s AI tools yourself, then don’t panic. LinkedIn has clearly stated that users who have opted out are still free to use AI features.
If you have opted-out, you may still use generative AI features on the LinkedIn platform but your personal data will not be used to train or fine-tune those models. – LinkedIn FAQs
Who Else is Using My Data to Train AI?
LinkedIn isn’t the first company to scrape user data to teach its AI, and it won’t be the last. In fact the practice is set to become a lot more common, as AI features find their way into everything from social media platforms to streaming services.
Reddit caused an outcry among its users earlier in the year when it was revealed that the company was allowing Google to train on content posted on the platform. Google has been using this information to bolster its search results, with somewhat mixed results, including telling users to make pizzas out of glue.
For Reddit users who didn’t agree with the move, they were out of luck. Reddit’s terms state that all content on the platform is its property, and as such, users aren’t afforded the option to opt out.
Luckily, LinkedIn is allowing users to decline having their data used, for now. But the rise of AI training is a stark reminder that when it comes to these platforms, we are the product.
