TikTok owner ByteDance sues intern for $1.1 million in damages for ‘sabotaging’ AI project

TikTok parent company ByteDance is going after a former intern for allegedly sabotaging an AI training project.

According to The South China Morning Post, ByteDance is seeking 8 million yuan (about $1.1 million) in damages and a public apology from ex-intern Tian Keyu. The case, which has already been accepted by Haidian District Court in Beijing, centers around accusations of Tian tampering with code related to an AI training project. ByteDance also owns AI chatbot Doubao, which is the company’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Tian was fired in August because he “maliciously interfered with the model training tasks,” according to a statement from ByteDance. In the same statement, ByteDance disputes rumors that the tampering involved 8,000 GPU cards and lost the company tens of millions of dollars, saying those claims are “seriously exaggerated.” The company also said Tian claimed to be a part of the AI Lab, but he was really part of a separate commercial technology team.

ByteDance has been busy with its AI-focused projects. It has introduced several features for TikTok including, AI-generated digital avatars and AI tools for advertising. It also reportedly has a powerful web crawler called Bytespider that’s gobbling up content on the internet for LLM training.

Meanwhile, the TikTok ban deadline is coming up in January, making its future in the U.S. uncertain. That said, President-elect Donald Trump, who is now on TikTok, said he wants to overturn the ban.