A group of writers led by acclaimed novelist Michael Chabon and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang are suing Facebook parent Meta and ChatGPT creator OpenAI, alleging in two separate lawsuits that their platforms artificial intelligence have engaged in copyright infringement with tens of thousands of people. books.
The two proposed class-action lawsuits have the potential to turn into an epic battle if more writers join in – a growing possibility, as more authors become aware that Silicon Valley would reap in droves books to train AI robots.
In the lawsuit against Meta, which was filed this week in federal court in California, the authors accuse Facebook’s parent company of sucking up massive amounts of books from the Internet in order to train the broad language “Llama” model of the company using data including pirated versions of their writings.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Meta, speaks at the New York Times DealBook Summit at Lincoln Center on November 30, 2022 in New York. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The same authors filed a similar class-action lawsuit last week against ChatGPT creator OpenAI, claiming that their books and plays are particularly valuable for AI language training as “the best examples of long-form writing and high quality,” according to a Reuters report. report.
Besides Chabon and Hwang, the other authors leading the prosecution are authors Matthew Klam, Rachel Louise Snyder and Ayelet Waldman.
Chabon (photo) is the author of the novels Wonderful boys And The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for his 2000 novel. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clayand he was co-creator and writer of the television series Star Trek Picard. Hwang’s stage drama Mr. Butterfly won the Tony for Best Play in 1988.
The two new lawsuits follow a similar suit filed by another group of writers led by comedian and actress Sarah Silverman, alleging that Meta and OpenAI used their written content without permission to train AI language models.
Other writers, including Stephen King, Zadie Smith and Michael Pollan, are part of a growing list of authors whose works are being used to train AI platforms, according to a recent report.
Still, the perpetrators’ lawsuits could face an uphill legal battle.
As Vulture recently noted, the Supreme Court determined in 2016 that Google Books’ practice of summarizing texts — and showing excerpts to users — did not violate copyright law. This means the law could be interpreted as allowing books to be used to train software, such as AI applications.
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