In a recent legal battle, The New York Times took Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and OpenAI to court, claiming they trained their artificial intelligence (AI) model ChatGPT on millions of New York Times articles.
The move raises questions about the relationship between artificial intelligence and journalism, leading to discussions on fair use, copyright and intellectual property.
The New York Times argues that OpenAI's training approach turns its AI model into a direct competitor, essentially entering the news space.
Following the announcement of the lawsuit on Dec. 27, the New York Times's share price rose almost 7%, ending the year with its highest share price of the year at $48.99.
OpenAI released a statement on Jan. 8 in its defense of the lawsuit. In the statement, OpenAI was quick to dismiss the lawsuit as "without merit." The post outlines four defenses, claiming the company collaborates with news organizations to create new opportunities. Despite this claim, its next defense is that "training is fair use, but we provide an opt-out because it's the right thing to do."
Seemingly contradicting their second point, OpenAI admits there are "problems" with its model. Namely, the model will regurgitate exact phrases from trained data. This means the ChatGPT model uses exact phrases from trained works and sells them to its users.
Despite these claims, OpenAI is telling a slightly different story in its filings to the House of Lords communications and digital select committee.
"It would be impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials," OpenAI stated in its filing.
The submission in early December notes, "OpenAI complies with the requirements of all applicable laws, including copyright laws." But the next sentence in the filing says, "We believe that legally, copyright law does not forbid training, we also recognize that there is still work to be done to support and empower creators."
The clash between journalism and AI is not unique, as artists, musicians and other creatives have expressed similar concerns. Technologies like Lensa and DALL-E 3 raise questions about how AI learns from existing work to generate new content.
Artificial intelligence continues to be a hot topic among venture capitalists, regulators and much of the corporate world. But the technology continues to pose hard questions for society. As courts begin ruling on the use and development of AI, it will have vast implications for the future of several industries.
Microsoft has yet to respond to this but it has positioned itself to become a top AI company by purchasing a stake in OpenAI.
Launched in 2023 by Sam Altman, OpenAI's ChatGPT quickly showed the power of artificial intelligence in an affordable and accessible way for all.
Despite this drama and others, venture capitalists continue to charge ahead, pouring billions of dollars into the AI space. In 2023, 25% of all venture capital went into AI startups, totaling nearly $50 billion.
Within the equity crowdfunding and retail startup investing community, investors poured tens of millions of dollars into AI-based startups in 2023.
The outcome of this high-stakes drama may redefine the relationship between AI and journalism and leave an indelible mark on the ever-evolving landscape of technology, content creation and Microsoft's standing in the industry.