George RR Martin, the author of the saga Game Of Thronesand other writers have launched lawsuits against the Californian start-up OpenAI, which they accuse of having used their works to create ChatGPT in violation of their copyright.
In the complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in New York, they accuse the company of using their books “without permission” to train its language model, artificial intelligence (AI) technology to the basis of ChatGPT, software capable of producing all kinds of texts on simple query in everyday language.
“At the heart of these algorithms is systematic theft on a large scale,” assert the lawyers.
Among the plaintiffs in this class action are the Authors Guild (organization that represents authors) and several writers, including George RR Martin and the novelist John Grisham,
Many other complaints have been filed by artists, organizations, and coders against OpenAI and its competitors.
Language models “endanger the ability of fiction writers to make a living, as they allow anyone to automatically and freely (or very cheaply) generate texts for which they would otherwise have to pay authors,” the lawyers argue in Tuesday’s complaint.
They also argue that generative AI tools can be used to produce derivative content, which imitates the style of writers.
“In an unfair and perverse way […]deliberate copying [du travail] plaintiffs therefore transform their works into engines of their own destruction,” asserts the complaint.
The guild and authors are seeking a ban on the use of copyrighted books to train language models “without express permission,” as well as damages.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request from AFP.
The company needed mountains of text found online to train its language model, but never specified exactly which sites and writings were used.
Propelled among the AI giants thanks to the success of ChatGPT at the end of last year, OpenAI is already the subject of other similar lawsuits, including an action by a group of computer engineers which also attacks Microsoft, its main investor, and the GitHub platform.
And artists filed a complaint in January against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt, whose programs were trained from numerous visual works on the Internet.
In early September, Microsoft announced that it would provide legal protection to customers sued for copyright infringement on content generated with its generative AI tools.