SoftwareAIOpenAI says it’s ‘impossible’ to create ChatGPT without copyrighted content, as if that’s somehow a good excuseWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
SoftwareAIOpenAI says it’s ‘impossible’ to create ChatGPT without copyrighted content, as if that’s somehow a good excuseWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
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It’s not the only one taking issue with that approach: A group of 17 authors including John Grisham and George RR Martin filed suit against OpenAI in 2023, accusing it of “systematic theft on a mass scale.”
In its presentation to the House of Lords, OpenAI doesn’t deny the use of copyrighted materials, but instead says it’s all fair use—and anyway, it simply has no choice. “Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression—including blog posts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents—it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” it wrote.
“Limiting training data to public domain books and drawings created more than a century ago might yield an interesting experiment, but would not provide AI systems that meet the needs of today’s citizens.”
I don’t find it a particularly compelling argument. If I, for instance, got busted knocking over a bank, I don’t think it would carry much weight with the cops if I told them that it was the only way to provide myself with the money that meets the needs of me. That is admittedly a bit simplistic, and it’s possible that OpenAI’s lawyers will be able to successfully argue that using copyrighted materials without permission to train its LLMs falls within the confines of fair use. But to my ear the justification for using copyrighted works without a green-light from the original creator ultimately boils down to, “But we really,reallywanted to.”
Fair use is central to OpenAI’s position that the use of copyrighted materials doesn’t actually break any rules. It said in its filing with the House of Lords that “OpenAI complies with the requirements of all applicable laws, including copyright laws,” and went deeper on that point in anupdate released today.
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We build AI to empower people, including journalists.Our position on the @nytimes lawsuit:• Training is fair use, but we provide an opt-out• “Regurgitation” is a rare bug we’re driving to zero• The New York Times is not telling the full storyhttps://t.co/S6fSaDsfKbJanuary 8, 2024
We build AI to empower people, including journalists.Our position on the @nytimes lawsuit:• Training is fair use, but we provide an opt-out• “Regurgitation” is a rare bug we’re driving to zero• The New York Times is not telling the full storyhttps://t.co/S6fSaDsfKbJanuary 8, 2024
“Even when using such prompts, our models don’t typically behave the way The New York Times insinuates, which suggests they either instructed the model to regurgitate or cherry-picked their examples from many attempts,” OpenAI wrote.
OpenAI said in its House of Lords filing that it is “continuing to develop additional mechanisms to empower rightsholders to opt out of training,” and is pursuing deals with various agencies like the one itsigned with Associated Pressin 2023 that it hopes will “yield additional partnerships soon.” But to me that lands like a “forgiveness instead of permission” approach: OpenAI is already scraping this stuff anyway, so agencies and outlets might as well sign some kind of deal before a court rules that AI companies can do whatever they want.
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