The Chinese tech firm has dismissed some reports about the extent of the damage the unnamed intern caused, insisting the claims "contain some exaggerations and inaccuracies".

However, the company confirmed they sacked the intern for interfering with the training of an AI model.

In a statement, ByteDance said: "The individual was an intern with the [advertising] technology team and has no experience with the AI Lab.

"Their social media profile and some media reports contain inaccuracies."

The firm added that commercial online operations - including large language AI models - weren't impacted by the intern's actions, while denying reports that more than £7.7 million of damage was caused.

ByteDance fired the person involved in August, and informed the intern's university as well as industry bodies.

There had been reports about the incident on social media over the weekend.

ByteDance's ChatGPT-esque generative AI model DouBao is China's most popular AI chatpot.

The company is also behind some of the biggest social media apps around the world, including TikTok and Chinese-equivalent platform Douyin.