17 prominent authors, George RR Martin of “Game of Thrones” fame inclusive, have filed copyrights violation claims against OpenAI, creators of Generative AI chabot, chatGPT and GPT4 which responds to prompts to generate text, images, or audio output using large datasets and material scraped from the internet via its Large Language Model (LLM) used to train the chatbot. The suit claims that OpenAI used those copyrighted materials without permission, and that same did not fall under the “fair use” exception. Fair use essential allows the use of copyrighted works for non-commercial purposes like for research, review, or commentary. Especially in academia. Most research papers contain references to other works that are duly acknowledged. Otherwise, a researcher could be accused of plagiarism, which is strictly frowned upon and could have grave implications in academic circles.
The outcome of this lawsuit could spark off fresh debates about copyright and data privacy & protection in relation to Generative AI and point the direction of the operations of companies developing genai in the future. OpenAI in its defence claims to be in talks with creators and the authors guild about these concerns with a view to educating authors and creators about its operations and arriving at a mutually beneficial understanding/ arrangement that pushes the technology forward.
WODI & WODI 