In addition to these allegations, Perplexity has also been accused of surfacing AI-generated results and misinformation. Srinivas has admitted to using deceptive tactics, such as pretending to be an academic researcher to scrape Twitter data, to prove the value of Perplexity to investors. These practices have led to questions about the true value of "answer engines" like Perplexity, which cannot generate actual information on their own and rely on abusing third-party policies. The article concludes by questioning whether Perplexity's users or investors care about these unethical practices.
Key takeaways:
- Perplexity, a company in talks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, is attempting to create an 'answer engine' that provides direct answers rather than search results, potentially depriving primary sources of ad revenue.
- Perplexity has been accused of copyright infringement and plagiarism, including dodging paywalls to summarize premium content and using original artwork without permission.
- CEO Aravind Srinivas has been criticized for unethical practices, including using third-party scrapers that ignore robots.txt codes and scraping Twitter under the guise of academic research.
- Perplexity's practices are seen as damaging to the foundations of trust that built the internet, raising questions about the company's ethics and the value proposition of 'answer engines'.