OpenAI Hits Back at The New York Times Lawsuit, Calls It ‘Without Merit’ and Affirms Support for Journalism

Boston, MA – OpenAI has responded to a lawsuit filed against it by The New York Times, calling it “without merit” and expressing support for journalism and partnerships with news organizations. The lawsuit accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of using millions of articles to train their AI tools. In a blog post, the makers of ChatGPT stated that the Times was not telling the full story. OpenAI claims to have been working with the Times on a “high-value partnership” regarding attribution within ChatGPT responses.

OpenAI explained that the Times’ content did not significantly contribute to the training of their existing models and would not have a significant impact on future training. The company expressed surprise and disappointment at the lawsuit. The newspaper is seeking billions of dollars in damages and demanding that the companies destroy any chatbot models or training data that use copyrighted material from the New York Times.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, alleges that Microsoft and OpenAI used articles without authorization to train chatbots that now compete with the Times as a source of reliable information. OpenAI responded by stating that the “regurgitation” of content was from years-old material that was already available on other third-party websites.

OpenAI admitted to using copyrighted works in the past but did not disclose the sources of the language that trains its tools. The use of AI-generated art has raised concerns among visual artists, who have called for tighter regulation.

In conclusion, OpenAI has defended itself against the lawsuit filed by The New York Times, stating that the allegations are baseless and that they have been working with the newspaper on a partnership regarding content attribution. The lawsuit seeks damages and the destruction of chatbot models and training data. OpenAI maintains that the use of content in its AI tools is from publicly available sources.