George R.R. Martin and Other Top Writers Sue OpenAI Over ChatGPT

A number of top authors including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and more are suing OpenAI, alleging that it trained its ChatGPT on protected text without authorization.

Break it down: The proposed class-action suit, led by the Authors Guild and including a group of 17 writers, alleges that OpenAI "copied Plaintiffs’ works wholesale, without permission or consideration." It alleged that the books OpenAI used to train ChatGPT "were downloaded from pirate ebook repositories and then copied into the fabric of GPT 3.5 and GPT 4." It cites an attempt to generate an installment in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series as well as AI-generated books posted on Amazon that "attempt to pass themselves off as human-generated and seek to profit off a human author’s hard-earned reputation."

The suit is seeking damages, including statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work, and an injunction blocking OpenAI from continuing to use the authors’ works to train ChatGPT.

What they're saying: “It is imperative that we stop this theft in its tracks or we will destroy our incredible literary culture, which feeds many other creative industries in the U.S.,” Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said in a statement. “Great books are generally written by those who spend their careers and, indeed, their lives, learning and perfecting their crafts. To preserve our literature, authors must have the ability to control if and how their works are used by generative AI.”
 
A spokesperson for OpenAI said in a 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."

Why does it matter? The lawsuit is one of several that have popped up this year over unauthorized training of AI and copyright, and it may only be a matter of time before the issue makes its way into music. Lawsuits have already been launched involving authors suing over AI being trained on illegally copied works, AI-created images receiving copyrights and more.