You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
ATTN: Third-Party AI is toggled to ON automatically
Fellow DropBox Community Members,
If you don't already know this, Third-Party AI is automatically set to "ON" without our permission. To FIX THIS: Go to your Account Icon > Settings > Third-Party ...
I'm absolutely furious. There is NO way we would have enabled this by default. We have relied on Dropbox for personal and professional lives for over a decade, and feely deeply betrayed. What information was shared and when? Was our info used to train any models? How was this done without our permission? Were Vault items shared? We didn't opt in!
Replying to my own post. I've done alot of reading, and some calming down over the last 18 hours since I learned about this. The good news, I don't *THINK* based upon what i've read, any of our files have been shared with openAI.
The bad news? I've lost all faith in dropbox, and its ceo. At this point, short of his resignation, then I'm gone never to return. And will gladly join any lawsuit about this issue. It is clear based upon the 2Q & 3Q earnings calls that the current CEO is shilling AI like it is the next crypto. And he is playing to a stock price, not his customers.
AI has promise, I use it, but it VERY immature to be deployed as quickly as it has. There are clear legal concerns about ownership of the training sets, being able to extract training data from algorithms, and the ownership of data that is "read" by an AI algorithm. This last point is key for those WITH data who want to maybe make use of these tools. How do I protect a shared file from being *learned* by an AI? Defaulting any integration to "on" is bizarre. This isn't a communication problem, this is a direction problem.
The fact that the CEO of a data management company IS NOT keenly aware and WARY of these risks, is the red flag here. Dropbox's mission should be to protect the data of our digital lives. Rolling out any AI integration right now is just dumb. ESPECIALLY one that dropbox itself can't 100% control or guarantee to its customers how it is used.
- DBXCommunity
Community Manager
I appreciate your message, but I'm gonna be that guy. This should've been spelled out BEFORE we were automatically opted into some sketchy Open AI nonsense. The fact that were all opted in AND not told about it is REALLY suspicious and it makes me (and clearly others) question any trust we have in this company.
That you made everyone opt in automatically shows your hand. Every single one of these services that do that, do so to allow for the scraping of data first, opt out later. It would have been incredibly easy to simply leave it opt in only, and when a user goes to access Dropbox AI, they then get a little window telling them "If you wish to use these services you agree to opt in to Open AI's servers". You could then direct them to the page about how it all works. Then everyone knows exactly what they are signing up for and why.
There is no world where you just need to work on "clarification" after watching what the backlash has been from everywhere else on the internet. There is no world where you are simply- innocently unaware of how partnering with Open AI could upset your users. And there is no world where Open AI helps dropbox out of the goodness of their hearts. The only thing Open AI cares about is DATA. The math is pretty clear.
Your company is worth 10 billion dollars. Like hell these are innocent little "mistakes" and "communication errors."Thank you for the updates. I want to note that yesterday when I checked I had the ability to toggle Third-Party AI access on my Dropbox Family account. Today that option is gone.
I assume this is a mistake that was corrected, since I've read in other parts of Community that Family accounts do not have access to Dropbox AI in alpha.
As the manager for a Family account I do not want my family's documents sent to OpenAI, and I can't be expected to have to educate my family on this.
