OpenAI, a popular generative artificial-intelligence system called ChatGPT, is facing a proposed class action lawsuit filed by two US authors in San Francisco federal court. Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad, based in Massachusetts, allege that OpenAI misused their works by using data copied from thousands of books without permission, thereby infringing their copyrights. The authors’ attorney, Matthew Butterick, has refrained from commenting while there has been no immediate response from OpenAI.
Lawsuits pertaining to the use of material to train advanced AI systems have been filed by various plaintiffs. Source-code owners have brought legal challenges against OpenAI and Microsoft’s GitHub, while visual artists have filed suits against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt.
The defendants in these lawsuits argue that their systems make fair use of copyrighted work.
ChatGPT is an AI system that responds to user text prompts in a conversational manner. Since its launch earlier this year, it has become the fastest-growing consumer application in history, attracting 100 million active users within two months.
To generate content, ChatGPT and similar systems rely on large amounts of data scraped from the internet. In the case of Tremblay and Awad’s lawsuit, books are considered a crucial component as they provide the best examples of high-quality longform writing.
The complaint estimates that OpenAI’s training data incorporated over 300,000 books, including those from illegal “shadow libraries” that distribute copyrighted books without permission.
Mona Awad is known for her novels “13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl” and “Bunny.” Paul Tremblay’s novels include “The Cabin at the End of the World,” which was adapted into the M. Night Shyamalan film “Knock at the Cabin” released in February.
Tremblay and Awad argue that ChatGPT is capable of generating “very accurate” summaries of their books, suggesting that their works were indeed present in the system’s database.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages on behalf of a nationwide class of copyright owners whose works were allegedly misused by OpenAI.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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Deepak Sen is a tech enthusiast who covers the latest technological innovations, from AI to consumer gadgets. His articles provide readers with a glimpse into the ever-evolving world of technology.
