Artificial intelligence algorithms need big quantities of data. 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 products, continuously collect individual details, raising concerns about invasive information gathering and unapproved gain access to by 3rd parties. The loss of privacy is more intensified by AI's capability to process and integrate vast amounts of information, possibly causing a surveillance society where private activities are continuously monitored and analyzed without appropriate safeguards or transparency.

Sensitive user information gathered may consist of online activity records, geolocation information, video, or audio. [204] For example, in order to build speech acknowledgment algorithms, Amazon has taped millions of private conversations and permitted temporary employees to listen to and transcribe a few of them. [205] Opinions about this extensive surveillance variety from those who see it as a required evil to those for whom it is plainly dishonest and an offense of the right to privacy. [206]
AI developers argue that this is the only method to deliver important applications and have developed a number of strategies that attempt to maintain privacy while still obtaining the data, such as information aggregation, de-identification and differential privacy. [207] Since 2016, some privacy specialists, such as Cynthia Dwork, have begun to view personal privacy in regards to fairness. Brian Christian wrote that specialists have rotated "from the concern of 'what they know' to the question of 'what they're finishing with it'." [208]
Generative AI is typically trained on unlicensed copyrighted works, including in domains such as images or computer system code