OpenAI responds to New York Times law suit

This is going to be a big disappointment for the Luddite camp hoping the NYT lawsuit against OpenAI would kill off ChatGPT and its rivals.

OpenAI has made clear it believes the law is on its side – fair use is well-established law, so this is just a matter of degree – and more importantly OpenAI is alleging that the NYT “intentionally manipulated prompts” in violation of OpenAI’s Terms of Service.

Further, said OpenAI, “the regurgitations The New York Times induced appear to be from years-old articles that have proliferated on multiple third–party websites.”

That of course being an argument that also applies to allegations of books being summarised by AI systems, and some authors and author advocacy groups have alleged. The reality is, these summaries already exist on retail sites and book sites like Goodreads, and if AI is simply gathering together what is already freely available out there then there is no real grounds for claiming copyright infringement.

In the case of NYT vs OpenAI, this is all the more likely to be settled out of court at some point. Which is likely as not what the NYT is intending.

OpenAI already has deals with Axell Springer and Associated Press, so the only thing stopping a deal between OpenAI and NYT is how much it will cost OpenAI.

For my earlier op-d on the OpenAI-NYT spat, click here.

VentureBeat has more on the OpenAI public rebuttal here.

Tis post first appeared for TNPS on LinkedIn.