Microsoft, OpenAI sued over AI training data

Last week, the New York Times's former journalists also sued OpenAI and Microsoft

Alexander Lewis - Jan 06, 2024

Microsoft signage is seen at the companys headquarters in Redmond, Washington, US, January 18, 2023. — Reuters — Microsoft signage is seen at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, US, January 18, 2023. — Reuters

A pair of nonfiction authors sued Open AI and its financial backer Microsoft on Friday in Manhattan federal court as the firms claimed that the tech giants misused their work to train the artificial intelligence models behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT and other AI-based services.

According to Reuters, writers Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gage told the court in a proposed class action that the companies infringed their copyrights by including several of their books as part of the data used to train OpenAI’s GPT large language model.

It should be noted that the lawsuit follows several others filed by fiction and nonfiction writers ranging from comedian Sarah Silverman to “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin against tech companies over the alleged use of their work to train AI programmes.

Last week, over the use of its journalists’ work to train AI applications the New York Times former journalists Basbanes and Gage also sued OpenAI and Microsoft

Their lawyer, Michael Richter, said it was "outrageous" that the companies could use their works to "power a new billion-dollar-plus industry without any compensation."