A group of 17 authors has sued OpenAI over its ChatGPT technology.
Filed on September 19th to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit — which includes George R. R. Martin (Game of Thrones), John Grisham (The Firm) and Michael Connelly (The Lincoln Lawyer) — alleges that the AI-powered language model is guilty of “flagrant and harmful infringements of plaintiffs’ registered copyrights.” On the whole, the authors accused ChatGPT of carrying out “systematic theft on a mass scale.”
Organized by the Authors Guild, the lawsuit contains examples of ChatGPT searches for each writer. For example, Martin claims that the chatbot generated “an infringing, unauthorized, and detailed outline for a prequel” to A Game of Thrones. This creation, dubbed “A Dawn of Direwolves,” is said to have used Martin’s same characters from his A Song of Ice and Fire novel series.
The authors are seeking an injunction blocking OpenAI from continuing to use their work to train ChatGPT, on top of unspecified monetary damages.
In response to the lawsuit, OpenAI issued the following media statement:
“We’re having productive conversations with many creators around the world, including the Authors Guild, and have been working co-operatively to understand and discuss their concerns about AI. We’re optimistic we will continue to find mutually beneficial ways to work together.”
It remains to be seen whether the lawsuit will proceed or, less likely, whether Martin will ever finish The Winds of Winter.
The full lawsuit can be viewed here.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
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