Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most exciting and promising technologies of our time, which is already changing almost all spheres of life – from medicine to finance, from education to manufacturing. However, despite its enormous potential, the development of AI is accompanied by a number of serious problems that may have far-reaching consequences for society, the economy, and ethics. The integration of these technologies into various fields raises questions about security, control, liability, and the impact on employment and privacy. These challenges require careful consideration and solutions, as they may determine not only the further development of AI but also the future of global society.
Justice, not fines
The New York Times is the first major American media organization to sue the developer of ChatGPT over copyright issues. The lawsuit, filed in the Federal District Court of Manhattan, claims that millions of articles published by The New York Times were used to train automated chatbots that now compete with the news outlet as a source of reliable information.
The lawsuit does not seek monetary compensation. But the lawsuit says that the defendants should be held liable for “billions of dollars in damages” related to “the illegal copying and use of The New York Times’ uniquely valuable works.” The authors of the lawsuit also call on companies to stop training chatbots on copyrighted data.
In its complaint, The New York Times said that it approached Microsoft and OpenAI in April 2023 to express concerns about the use of its intellectual property and to find an “amicable solution.” This solution could have included a commercial agreement and “technological reservations” around AI products. However, these negotiations did not reach a logical outcome.
OpenAI spokesperson Lindsay Held said she was “surprised and disappointed” by the lawsuit: “We respect the rights of content creators and owners and are committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from AI technology and new revenue models. We hope to find a mutually beneficial way to work together, as we do with many other publishers.”
Media vs. AI progress
The lawsuit is really a test of the entire AI market for maturity and a search for new legal norms for generative AI technologies. In general, it can have serious consequences for the news industry as well. The New York Times is one of the few online publications that have built successful business models. Therefore, the situation when readers turn to chatbots instead of them will directly affect their earnings.
At the same time, OpenAI and other AI technology firms that use a variety of online content, from newspaper articles to poems and scripts, to train chatbots are attracting billions of dollars in funding. Investors currently value OpenAI at more than $80 billion. Microsoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI and included ChatGPT in its Bing search engine.
“The defendants seek to reap the benefits of The New York Times’ massive investment in their unique journalistic product for free,” the complaint says. The authors of the lawsuit accuse OpenAI and Microsoft of “free use of The New York Times content to create products that will potentially replace our publication and take away its audience.”
In one example of a lawsuit illustrating the use of The New York Times by AI systems, Browse With Bing, Microsoft’s ChatGPT-based search function, was shown to reproduce almost verbatim results from Wirecutter, The New York Times’ product review site. However, there were two problems with this. First, the textual results from Bing did not link to the Wirecutter article. Secondly, the referral links in the text, which Wirecutter uses to earn commissions on sales based on its recommendations, were removed.
“The decrease in traffic to Wirecutter’s articles and, in turn, the decrease in traffic to the affiliate links subsequently result in a loss of revenue for Wirecutter,” the complaint says.
History of lawsuits against AI companies
Concerns about the uncompensated use of intellectual property by AI systems have spread across various creative industries. The reasons are related to the technology’s impressive ability to imitate natural language and generate complex written responses to almost any prompt, as well as create images on demand.
In July 2023, actress Sarah Silverman joined two lawsuits accusing Meta and OpenAI of using her memoir as a training text for AI programs. Novelists expressed concern when it turned out that AI systems had consumed tens of thousands of books, leading to a lawsuit by well-known authors, including Jonathan Franzen and John Grisham. The Getty Images photo bank sued an AI company that creates images based on written prompts, claiming that the platform relies on unauthorized use of Getty’s copyrighted visuals.
In fact, this situation is a normal development of technology. It is not the first time that we have seen the boundaries of copyright law redefined in times of technological change, such as the emergence of radio broadcasting or digital file sharing programs. The use of AI has become yet another stage in the revision of established norms.
Most likely, these lawsuits will eventually reach the highest judicial body. At least that’s what Richard Tofel, former president of the nonprofit ProPublica and a news consultant, believes: “The Supreme Court’s decision is essentially inevitable. Some publishers will agree to some concessions – including perhaps even The New York Times – but many publishers will not agree to resolve the standoff amicably. That’s why this new and important issue of copyright law in the AI era will need to be addressed at the highest level.”
Microsoft has previously recognized potential copyright issues regarding its AI products. In September 2023, the company announced that if customers using the company’s AI tools complain about copyright issues, it will compensate such customers for damages and cover the relevant legal costs.
Other tech industry players were more categorical in their approach to copyright. In October 2023, Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm and early sponsor of OpenAI, wrote in comments to the US Copyright Office that holding AI companies liable for copyright would “either kill or significantly hinder their development.”
“The result will be much less competition, much less innovation, and likely the loss of the US as a leader in global AI development,” the investment company said in a statement.
The development of AI opens up many new opportunities for humanity, but at the same time brings a number of serious challenges that require a comprehensive approach to their solution. Security, ethics, and privacy issues, as well as the impact of AI on the economy and employment, require not only technical innovations but also the formation of clear regulations and legal norms. Therefore, it is important that scientists, engineers, legislators, and society as a whole work to create conditions that will maximize the potential of AI while mitigating possible risks. Ultimately, how we solve these problems today will determine what our future will look like in the future.
artificial intelligence / copyright / intellectual property / lawsuit / New York Times / OpenAI
