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Zoom's AI Experiment Backfires, Obliterates User Trust

Zoom backtracked on plans to use your data to train and tune its AI algorithms and models, but the damage may be done, according to a new survey.

 & Eric Griffith Senior Editor, Features

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Are companies moving too fast as they embrace AI? When you consider how Zoom handled the AI boom and the backlash it received, the answer is certainly yes.

Earlier this year, Zoom updated its terms of service to say the company would use diagnostic data for “machine learning or artificial intelligence (including for the purposes of training and tuning of algorithms and models).” When someone finally noticed earlier this month, Zoom said it would not train AI with your data "without your consent." Amidst backlash, Zoom updated the TOS again to remove the part about consent and say it "does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen-sharing, attachments, or other communications" for training at all.

Too late, Zoom. The damage is done, according to a survey of 1,074 US residents who've used Zoom for meetings at least once in the last year. The big takeaway is that 74% of survey respondents don't want Zoom using their data to train an AI, especially Gen Y and millennials. Almost all respondents (97%) who disagree with Zoom's use of the data see the move as a threat.

A healthy number of survey repondents also want to be compensated. If only artists and writers were getting some cash back from the various large language models (LLMs) currently operating.

Trust in Zoom dropped for 78.1% of respondents. Most are ready to make the jump to a competitor.

Most of the people in the survey are cynical realists: They don't think Zoom made the second TOS change for any reason other than it got caught in some bad publicity.

For the full report, visit Home Security Heroes.

About Our Expert

Eric Griffith

Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

My Experience

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).

I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.

In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.

I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

The Technology I Use

My first computer was a Laser 128, an Apple II-compatible clone with an integrated keyboard, matched with an eye-straining monochrome green monitor. I used it to type papers in college for other people for money...until I discovered the Mac SE in the college computer room. That changed my life. My first cellphone was a Samsung Uproar—the silver one with the built-in MP3 player from the Napster days (the pre-iPod era).

I use an iPhone 15 Pro hourly and an iPad Air infrequently (but I'm always in the market for a cheap Android tablet). I have a PlayStation 5 just to play Spider-Man, and several Windows machines, including a work-issued Lenovo ThinkPad. I talk to Alexa and Siri all day long. I do the majority of my computing on a 15-inch LG Gram laptop attached to a Thunderbolt hub to run a multi-monitor setup—I overdid it on the power needed to simply work from home.

I'm most at home in Microsoft Word after decades of writing there. More and more, I turn to services like Google Docs, using tools like Grammarly. I use Google's Chrome browser due to an addiction to several extensions I think I can't live without, but probably could. I use Excel extensively on data-intensive stories, but for chart creation, we've switched over entirely to using Infogram for interactive features that are hard to find elsewhere. I do a lot of graphics work for my stories, but limit myself to the free and amazing Paint.NET software to edit images.

I'm a firm evangelist for using the cloud for backup and syncing of files; I'm primarily using Dropbox, which has never failed me, but I also have redundant setups on Microsoft OneDrive, plus extra picture backups on Amazon Photos and iCloud. Why take chances? For entertainment, mine is a streaming-only household—my kid has never seen network TV and barely been exposed to commercials, thanks to Roku and Amazon Music. The house is peppered with smart speakers from Amazon for instant gratification and control of smart home devices like multiple Wyze cameras and Nest Protect smoke detectors. I've got accounts on all the major social networks, to my horror. I have a robot vacuum for each floor of the house. I want a 3D printer, but not sure what I'd use it for.

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