Perplexity AI Faces Scrutiny Over Alleged Plagiarism and Aggressive Web Scraping

Perplexity AI faces scrutiny over alleged plagiarism and aggressive web scraping practices, raising legal and ethical questions about the startup’s approach to building its search engine.

Key findings and reactions: WIRED’s reporting has uncovered evidence suggesting Perplexity AI may be engaging in questionable practices:

• The company appears to be violating its own publicly stated policy by scraping websites that have attempted to block it using the Robots Exclusion Protocol.
• Perplexity’s chatbot generated a summary of a WIRED article that included a verbatim sentence without proper attribution, which some experts consider plagiarism.
• The startup’s practices have drawn strong criticism from journalism professors and raised concerns about the ethical implications of its approach to AI-powered search.

Potential legal issues: While the concept of plagiarism is not legally actionable, experts suggest Perplexity could face various legal challenges:

• Copyright infringement claims, although the strength of such cases is debatable given the transformative nature of the summaries and the fact that copyright does not protect facts.
• Unfair advertising or deceptive trade practices claims for not adhering to the Robots Exclusion Protocol despite publicly stating it would.
• Loss of protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if the chatbot generates defamatory content not present in the original source material.

Broader implications for AI and intellectual property: The Perplexity case highlights the need for a robust legal framework to address the challenges posed by generative AI:

• Existing copyright laws may be insufficient to protect content creators and incentivize the production of original work in the face of large-scale AI-powered summarization and reproduction.
• The rapid advancement of AI technologies is forcing society to grapple with fundamental questions about the value of creativity, the sustainability of creative economies, and the need to balance innovation with the rights of content creators.

Looking ahead: As Perplexity continues to attract significant investment and attention, the company’s practices will likely face increasing scrutiny from legal experts, content creators, and the public at large. The outcome of this debate could have far-reaching implications for the future of AI-powered search, the viability of traditional media outlets, and the evolution of intellectual property law in the digital age.