Chinese tech giant denies damage claims after incident
ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has dismissed an intern for what it described as “maliciously interfering” with the training of one of its AI models. The Chinese tech giant clarified that while the intern, who was part of the advertising technology team, had no experience with ByteDance’s AI Lab, some reports circulating on social media and other platforms have exaggerated the incident’s impact.
ByteDance stated that the interference did not disrupt its commercial operations or its large language AI models. It also denied claims that the damage exceeded $10 million or affected an AI training system powered by thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs). The company highlighted that the intern was fired in August, and it has since notified their university and relevant industry bodies.
As one of the leading tech firms in AI development, ByteDance operates popular platforms like TikTok and Douyin. The company continues to invest heavily in AI, with applications including its Doubao chatbot and a text-to-video tool named Jimeng.