'Game of Thrones' author George R.R. Martin and other writers sue ChatGPT's maker claiming copyright infringement: 'Generative AI threatens to decimate the author profession'
- George R.R. Martin and other authors are suing ChatGPT owner OpenAI claiming copyright infringement.
- The lawsuit alleges OpenAI is using the works of authors to train ChatGPT without their consent.
Writers have launched yet another lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
On Tuesday, the Authors Guild — a group that represents nearly 14,000 U.S. authors — and prominent writers within it sued OpenAI in the Southern District of New York over allegations that the ChatGPT-maker trained its large language AI models on the works of authors like George R.R. Martin, the novelist behind the book "A Game of Thrones," and John Grisham without their consent.
Through nonconsensual training, the conversational AI chatbot would "allow anyone to generate" texts that the publishers would "otherwise pay writers to create," and "spit out derivative works" based on summaries or paraphrases, according to the lawsuit. In turn, the lawsuit alleges that OpenAI's LLMs could "endanger" the ability for fiction writers to make a living.
"These algorithms are at the heart of Defendants' massive commercial enterprise," the lawsuit states. "And at the heart of these algorithms is systematic theft on a mass scale."
The writers "seeks damages for the lost opportunity to license their works," according to the suit, and a "permanent injunction to prevent these harms from occurring."
The ability for ChatGPT to mimic the works of authors, according to the Guild, could spell trouble for the publishing industry. In a public statement discussing the lawsuit, the Guild cited its latest author income survey which found that the median salary for a full-time author as of 2022 was "just barely over $20,000," and that nearly half of the authors surveyed earned less than the median.
"Generative AI threatens to decimate the author profession," the Guild said in its statement.
In response to the lawsuit, OpenAI told Insider that the company respects "the rights of writers and authors" and has been "working cooperatively" with creators globally to "understand and discuss their concerns about AI."
"We're optimistic we will continue to find mutually beneficial ways to work together to help people utilize new technology in a rich content ecosystem," OpenAI wrote in a statement.
This latest lawsuit joins a series of legal disputes that writers have launched against OpenAI on similar accusations of copyright infringement. These lawsuits come as Hollywood writers continue to strike, in part, out of fears that powerful AI technology could potentially replace their jobs.
In late June, award-winning authors Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay sued OpenAI on allegations that the company "ingested" their books to train ChatGPT. Weeks later, comedian Sarah Silverman — alongside authors Christophe Golden and Richard Kadrey — sued OpenAI over similar allegations. As of August, The New York Times is considering suing OpenAI over claims that its news articles are being fed to ChatGPT.
It's not just writers suing OpenAI. In January, a trio of artists launched a lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and Deviant Art accusing the companies of training their text-to-image AI generators on their art without their permission. That same month, Getty Images filed a lawsuit against Stability AI over claims that the company "unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright."
Some publishers have gone the route of negotiating a licensing deal with OpenAI in return for payment. Associated Press, for instance, struck a two-year agreement with OpenAI that gives the AI company permission to train ChatGPT on its archive of news stories.
As for the Authors Guild, writers "must have the ability to control if and how their works are used by generative AI," Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger wrote in a statement.
"Regurgitated culture is no replacement for human art," Rasenberger said.