George R.R. Martin and other authors say OpenAI stole their books to train ChatGPT: 'We are here to fight'
A group of 17 authors, including Game of Thrones novelist George R.R. Martin, have filed a class action lawsuit against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI on behalf of fiction writers who believe that their work was used to train the generative AI chatbot.
The lawsuit is being organized by advocacy group The Authors Guild, which said in a statement that «generative AI threatens to decimate the author profession» and that it has filed the lawsuit «because of the profound unfairness and danger of using copyrighted books to develop commercial AI machines without permission or payment.»
«This case is merely the beginning of our battle to defend authors from theft by OpenAI and other generative AI,» said Authors Guild president Maya Shanbhag Lang. «As the oldest and largest organization of writers, with nearly 14,000 members, the Guild is uniquely positioned to represent authors’ rights. Our membership is diverse and passionate. Our staff, which includes a formidable legal team, has expertise in copyright law. This is all to say: We do not bring this suit lightly. We are here to fight.»
The full list of authors who've put their names on the suit is: David Baldacci, Mary Bly, Michael Connelly, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, Elin Hilderbrand, Christina Baker Kline, Maya Shanbhag Lang, Victor LaValle, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Douglas Preston, Roxana Robinson, George Saunders, Scott Turow, and Rachel Vail.
The complaint, which was filed last week, specifically accuses OpenAI of using «text from books copied from pirate sites» to train GPT 3.5 and GPT 4.
As their name implies, «large language models» like ChatGPT require a lot of training data, and the companies behind them are not known for being discerning about what
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