OpenAI has insisted it is "impossible" to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material.
In a submission to the UK's House of Lords communications and digital select committee, OpenAI said it could not train large language models such as ChatGPT without access to copyrighted work.
“Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression – including blogposts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents – it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” OpenAI said in its submission, as reported by paywalled UK newspaper the Telegraph.
“Limiting training data to public domain books and drawings created more than a century ago might yield an interesting experiment, but would not provide AI systems that meet the needs of today’s citizens,” OpenAI added.
Training AI models on copyrighted materials has become one of the technolgy's hottest topics as generative AI has exploded in recent years. In December, The New York Times sued OpenAI and investor Microsoft for the “unlawful use” of its work to create their products. In response, OpenAI said it believes training is "fair use", and insisted: “We support journalism, partner with news organizations, and believe The New York Times lawsuit is without merit.”
That lawsuit followed a lawsuit in September brought by 17 authors, including Game of Thrones’ George RR Martin, who allege “systematic theft on a mass scale.”
In August, District Judge Beryl Howell upheld a U.S. Copyright Office finding that AI art could not be copyrighted. This finding dates back to 2018, when the Copyright Office claimed "the nexus between the human mind and creative expression" is critical to the grounds of copyright protection.
OpenAI has endured a tumultuous few months. In November, OpenAI’s Sam Altman was reinstated as CEO of the company he co-founded following a dramatic board-led firing. Microsoft, which has reportedly invested over $10 billion in OpenAI in the past year alone, was seemingly happy with the result.
According to The New York Times, OpenAI is now valued by investors at more than $80 billion. Microsoft has committed $13 billion to OpenAI and has incorporated the company’s technology into its Bing search engine. Experts say The New York Times' lawsuit could test the legality of generative AI technologies and determine their impact on journalism.
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Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
