OpenAI has publicly responded to a copyright lawsuit by The New York Times, calling the case “without merit” and saying it still hoped for a partnership with the media outlet.
In a blog post, OpenAI said the Times “is not telling the full story.” It took particular issue with claims that its ChatGPT AI tool reproduced Times stories verbatim, arguing that the Times had manipulated prompts to include regurgitated excerpts of articles. “Even when using such prompts, our models don’t typically behave the way The New York Times insinuates, which suggests they either instructed the model to regurgitate or cherry-picked their examples from many attempts,” OpenAI said.
OpenAI claims it’s attempted to reduce regurgitation from its large language models and that the Times refused to share examples of this reproduction before filing the lawsuit. It said the verbatim examples “appear to be from year-old articles that have proliferated on multiple third-party websites.” The company did admit that it took down a ChatGPT feature, called Browse, that unintentionally reproduced content.
I’ve been critical of IP laws, but fundamentally believe that they need to exist in some form to encourage creativity. Look no further than the writer’s guild strike for an example of individuals who wanted their bosses to steer clear of AI slop.
In fact, up until recently (when, coincidentally, their opinions started supporting giant AI corporations), critics of copyright were much more nuanced. But suddenly, a new strain of anti-copyright absolutists have arrived, lacking nuance and evidence for their beliefs. And if you question them too rigorously, they’ll pretend they aren’t absolutists.