In a legal showdown with potentially profound implications, a group of esteemed authors, including George RR Martin and John Grisham, has launched a lawsuit against OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, a leading large language model.
The authors claim that their copyrighted works were utilized without permission to train ChatGPT, sparking a heated debate at the intersection of artificial intelligence and intellectual property rights.
Authors guild takes the lead
The lawsuit, currently being heard in the federal court in Manhattan, accuses OpenAI of engaging in “systematic theft on a mass scale.” It alleges that ChatGPT and similar AI models extracted data from copyrighted books without authorization, primarily to generate accurate summaries of the authors’ literary creations.
Joining the fight alongside Martin and Grisham are notable authors such as Jonathan Franzen, Jodi Picoult, and George Saunders, collectively represented by the Authors Guild.
OpenAI, the defendant in this high-stakes legal battle, has countered the allegations by emphasizing its commitment to respecting authors’ rights and ensuring they receive fair compensation for their contributions to AI technology.
The organization expressed optimism about finding mutually beneficial solutions through ongoing discussions with creators, including the Authors Guild.
