The New York Times attacks OpenAI. The American newspaper filed a complaint this Wednesday, December 27, in Manhattan federal court against the creator of the ChatGPT conversational robot. The lawsuits concern copyright infringements.
The New York newspaper criticizes the company run by Sam Altman for having trained its artificial intelligence models based on its articles. With his complaint, the New York Times becomes the first major media outlet to officially enter the debate on the unauthorized use of works published on the web for the benefit of companies specializing in artificial intelligence.
For now, it is the artists who lead the fight, calling into question the training of artificial intelligence models from their works. Artificial intelligence had already demonstrated its ability to reproduce paintings or photographs inspired by existing media. Music tracks created by AI have also plagiarized artists, such as Drake or The Weeknd.
“Benefit from the Times’ huge investment”
The New York Times is not seeking a specific amount of money in its complaint. But based on millions of articles published by its journalists, the newspaper believes that OpenAI should be liable for “billions of dollars in legal and actual damages” related to the “illegal copying and use of the Times’s high-value works.”
The New York Times above all demands that all models that have been trained with its articles without authorization be destroyed. This refers not only to finished products like ChatGPT or GPT-4, but also to training data that incorporates material from the journal.
The start of the legal case would occur after unsuccessful negotiations between the New York Times, Microsoft and OpenAI. The newspaper’s complaint states that the alleged facts were brought to the attention of the two companies in April. It was even considered “a friendly solution,” indicates the New York newspaper, but subsequent discussions did not allow an agreement to be reached.
Source: BFM TV
