https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/01/openai-says-its-impossible-to-create-useful-ai-models-without-copyrighted-material/

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the everything machine --

OpenAI says it's "impossible" to create useful AI models without
copyrighted material

"Copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression" and
cannot be avoided.

Benj Edwards - Jan 9, 2024 8:58 pm UTC

An OpenAI logo on top of an AI-generated background
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OpenAI

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166

ChatGPT developer OpenAI recently acknowledged the necessity of using
copyrighted material in the development of AI tools like ChatGPT, The
Telegraph reports, saying they would be "impossible" without it. The
statement came as part of a submission to the UK's House of Lords
communications and digital select committee inquiry into large
language models.

 

Further Reading

NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

AI models like ChatGPT and the image generator DALL-E gain their
abilities from training sessions fed, in part, by large quantities of
content scraped from the public Internet without the permission of
rights holders (In the case of OpenAI, some of the training content
is licensed, however). This sort of free-for-all scraping is part of
a longstanding tradition in academic machine learning research, but
because deep learning AI models went commercial recently, the
practice has come under intense scrutiny.

"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,"
wrote OpenAI in the House of Lords submission.

Further, OpenAI writes that limiting training data to public domain
books and drawings "created more than a century ago" would not
provide AI systems that "meet the needs of today's citizens."

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This statement follows a lawsuit filed last month by The New York
Times against OpenAI and Microsoft, a significant investor in OpenAI,
for allegedly using the newspaper's content unlawfully in their
products. OpenAI responded to the lawsuit on its website on Monday,
claiming that the suit lacks merit and affirming its support for
journalism and partnerships with news organizations.

OpenAI's defense largely rests on the legal principle of fair use,
which permits limited use of copyrighted content without the owner's
permission under specific circumstances. The company asserts that
copyright law does not prohibit the training of AI models with such
material.

"Training AI models using publicly available internet materials is
fair use, as supported by long-standing and widely accepted
precedents," OpenAI wrote in its Monday blog post."We view this
principle as fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and critical
for US competitiveness."

 

Further Reading

OpenAI disputes authors' claims that every ChatGPT response is a
derivative work

This is not the first time OpenAI has claimed fair use regarding its
AI training data. In August, we reported on a similar situation in
which OpenAI defended its use of publicly available materials as fair
use in response to a copyright lawsuit involving comedian Sarah
Silverman.

OpenAI claimed that the authors in that lawsuit "misconceive[d] the
scope of copyright, failing to take into account the limitations and
exceptions (including fair use) that properly leave room for
innovations like the large language models now at the forefront of
artificial intelligence."

reader comments

166
 
Benj Edwards Benj Edwards is an AI and Machine Learning Reporter for
Ars Technica. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects
vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC.
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