Artificial intelligence algorithms require large quantities of information. The techniques used to obtain this data have actually raised issues about personal privacy, surveillance and copyright.

AI-powered devices and services, such as virtual assistants and IoT items, continually gather personal details, raising concerns about invasive information gathering and unapproved gain access to by 3rd parties. The loss of personal privacy is further worsened by AI's capability to process and integrate large amounts of information, possibly causing a surveillance society where specific activities are continuously monitored and examined without adequate safeguards or transparency.

Sensitive user data collected may include online activity records, geolocation data, video, or audio. [204] For instance, in order to build speech acknowledgment algorithms, Amazon has recorded countless personal conversations and enabled short-term workers to listen to and transcribe some of them. [205] Opinions about this extensive monitoring range from those who see it as a needed evil to those for whom it is plainly dishonest and a violation of the right to privacy. [206]
AI designers argue that this is the only way to deliver valuable applications and have developed numerous methods that attempt to maintain privacy while still obtaining the data, such as data aggregation, de-identification and differential personal privacy. [207] Since 2016, some privacy professionals, such as Cynthia Dwork, have begun to see privacy in regards to fairness. Brian Christian wrote that specialists have actually pivoted "from the concern of 'what they understand' to the question of 'what they're doing with it'." [208]
Generative AI is frequently trained on unlicensed copyrighted works, including in domains such as images or computer code