WASHINGTON: US comedian Sarah Silverman and two other authors have filed a lawsuit against Open AI, alleging copyright infringement and adding to the growing backlash against the company’s AI model, ChatGPT.
The plaintiffs claim that Open AI used their works without permission to train their AI models, joining a series of similar cases that could have significant implications for the development of this emerging trend in technology.
Furthermore, the trio has also initiated legal action against Facebook’s parent company, Meta, alleging that their open-source models also utilized pirated downloads of their books for training purposes.
In a blog post, the plaintiffs’ lawyers stated that a substantial portion of Open AI and Meta’s training materials were obtained from copyrighted works, including their own, without any consent, credit, or compensation.
In two separate lawsuits filed in a California court on Friday, the authors accuse these tech giants of using their books for training their AI models, citing multiple instances of copyright infringement.
If successful, these cases could completely change the way technology is developed, imposing limitations on how tech giants can create their AI models and generate convincing, human-like content.
Recent plaintiffs in a barrage of similar cases include owners of source code against Open AI and Microsoft’s GitHub, visual artists, and photo agency Getty against Stability AI.
San Francisco-based lawyer Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick are leading other lawsuits of this nature and have brought forth the latest lawsuit on behalf of Silverman, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey.
The lawsuit specifically mentions Silverman’s 2010 bestselling memoir The Bedwetter, Golden’s horror novel Ararat, and Kadrey’s Sandman Slim supernatural noir series.
Silverman is well-known in the United States for her edgy and often controversial humor, as well as her vocal stance on social and political issues.
Regarding Open AI, the plaintiffs assert that they never provided consent for their copyrighted books to be used as training material for ChatGPT. Despite this, Open AI ingested and utilized their copyrighted materials for training purposes.
The authors have provided exhibits in the lawsuit, containing detailed summaries of their works that were used by ChatGPT.
In the case against Meta, the trio alleges that the company relied on an illicitly created “shadow library” to develop their LLaMA models, which included their works.
These libraries make use of pirated torrent downloads to unlawfully distribute copyrighted works.
Open AI declined to comment on the lawsuit, while Meta has not yet responded to requests for comments. – AFP
Credit: The Star : Tech Feed
