(NewsNation) — The New York Times is suing ChatGPT creator OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, alleging the companies used millions of articles to train their AI tools.
The newspaper is seeking “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” and calls for the companies to destroy any chatbot models or training data that use copyrighted New York Times material.
The lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan and alleges Microsoft and OpenAI used articles without authorization to train chatbots that “now compete with the news outlet as a source of reliable information,” the outlet reported.
Neither OpenAI nor Microsoft responded to the New York Times’ request for comment.
The newspaper’s request is the latest push for regulation over AI technology’s use of copyright material. Musicians, artists, authors and voice actors all have made similar claims of copyright infringement.
The Authors Guild, representing writers such as George R. R. Martin, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham and Jodi Picoult, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in September. The guild accused the tech company of using books to train language models and programs that can generate literature.
OpenAI doesn’t disclose the source of language that trains its tools but has admitted to using copyrighted works in the past.
Visual artists have long called for tighter regulation over AI-generated art, which is created by models that analyze billions of existing images to create its own.
The technology has additionally raised concerns about the use of so-called deepfakes during political elections.
Some states have passed laws that require deepfakes to be labeled. Others have banned deepfakes that misrepresent candidates.
