We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.

Forum Discussion

ecmoran's avatar
ecmoran
Explorer | Level 4
11 months ago

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 AI and toggle OFF.

 

Why DropBox thought it was a good idea not to be up front about this change is beyond me. But it's *very shady* and I'm not happy about it! I'm a longtime customer but I know I have other options and will leave if DropBox gets way too cozy with Third-Party AI folks.

 

Sincerely,

ECM

  • beldenfox's avatar
    beldenfox
    Explorer | Level 4

    You opted me in to a feature that shares my data with a third-party? Without any sort of e-mail notification or advance warning? I had to find out about this via a tech-oriented news site!

     

    I'm stunned. You know perfectly well I would never agree to allow OpenAI access to my data which is why you went behind my back to opt me into this feature without warning.

     

    And, yes, I'm investigating alternatives. 

  • Cameron P.'s avatar
    Cameron P.
    Helpful | Level 5

    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! 

    • Cameron P.'s avatar
      Cameron P.
      Helpful | Level 5

      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's avatar
        DBXCommunity
        Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
        Hi Everyone,
         
        Thanks for your feedback and for voicing your concerns.
         
        The third-party AI toggle is only turned on to give eligible customers the opportunity to view our new AI features and functionality, like Dropbox AI. Neither this nor any other setting automatically or passively sends any Dropbox customer data to a third-party AI service.
         
        Dropbox AI won't send data to a third-party AI partner unless you explicitly interact with the AI-powered feature. Customer data isn't used to train third-party AI models. You, our customers, maintain control over the use of our AI features and even can opt out entirely. For more information on how to do so, please see this Help Center article: https://help.dropbox.com/view-edit/dropbox-ai-how-to
         
        We are working on updates to make all of this more clear.
  • NBAlex's avatar
    NBAlex
    Helpful | Level 5

    Oh perfect, I love having private business documents fed into openAI! That's so cool and definitely not a violation of privacy and a massive potential file security issue.

    Yeah, this sucks actually.

    • lkajdfhsiqo34tuy's avatar
      lkajdfhsiqo34tuy
      New member | Level 2

      Yep, this is a deal-breaker for me. Brb, nuking my account to go look for a provider that's trustworthy enough not to do this. The AI gold rush has really left some folks more ethically-challenged than usual.

About Delete, edit, and organize

Solve issues with deleting, editing, and organizing files and folders in your Dropbox account with support from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!