Reddit sued Anthropic on Wednesday, accusing the startup of training its artificial intelligence (AI) models on the popular forum without permission. 

The social media company alleges Anthropic has trained its Claude chatbot on Reddit users’ posts in violation of the site’s user agreement, which bars anyone from “commercially exploiting” its services or content. 

“This case is about the two faces of Anthropic: the public face that attempts to ingratiate itself into the consumer's consciousness with claims of righteousness and respect for boundaries and the law, and the private face that ignores any rules that interfere with its attempts to further line its pockets,” the lawsuit reads. 

“Reddit brings this action to stop Anthropic-who tells the world that it does not intend to train its models with stolen data from doing just that,” it continues. 

While Anthropic said in 2024 that it had blocked its automated bots from crawling Reddit content, Reddit alleges that they have continued to access the site “more than one hundred thousand times.” 

Reddit also underscored that it has entered into formal partnerships with other AI giants, like OpenAI and Google, to train their models on the forum’s content under terms that "protect Reddit and its users' interests and privacy."

“[D]espite what its marketing material says, Anthropic does not care about Reddit's rules or users: it believes it is entitled to take whatever content it wants and use that content however it desires, with impunity,” Reddit argues. 

An Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement that the company disagrees with Reddit's claims and will "defend ourselves vigorously."

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of cases challenging the way tech companies train their AI systems.  

News outlets, authors and artists have all sued these companies, often alleging copyright infringement, as the AI models consume vast amounts of material on their quest to mimic human intelligence.