OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, recently warned that banning the use of news and books to train chatbots will destroy the development of artificial intelligence. The company stated,
If this round of financing goes as planned, OpenAI will become the second most valuable startup in the United States, second only to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
However, despite its unlimited success, OpenAI has also encountered some troubles. Now, OpenAI is bracing for lawsuits from book publishers and the New York Times, which accuse the company of illegally using their content to "train" ChatGPT.
In a submission to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, OpenAI said: “Because today’s copyright covers virtually all forms of human expression – including blog posts, photos, forum posts, software code snippets and government documents – it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted material.”
"Limiting training data to public domain books and drawings created more than a century ago fails to deliver an AI system that meets the needs of today's citizens," the company said.
OpenAI said the company complied with all copyright laws when training its models and "we do not believe copyright law prohibits training."
Related lawsuits continue
However, OpenAI and other artificial intelligence companies have been accused of illegally using the works of authors and artists.
Last month, The New York Times sued OpenAI, saying the company "profited from massive copyright infringement, commercial exploitation and misappropriation of The Times' intellectual property."
Since this year, there have been constant copyright lawsuits surrounding the data used in large model training and the works generated. OpenAI has also been accused by multiple authors of using their books without authorization to train ChatGPT.
After being accused of copyright infringement by The New York Times, OpenAI said last week it was negotiating with dozens of news publishers to license articles. OpenAI has previously struck deals with publishers including the Associated Press and German media giant Axel Springer to gain access to their content.
OpenAI has also previously stated that it plans to develop tools that allow copyright holders to choose not to have their works used to train artificial intelligence systems.
Investment giants call for loosening regulations
British officials are considering new laws on copyright and artificial intelligence. In order to attract artificial intelligence companies and technology to the UK as soon as possible, the government has proposed a new copyright law exemption proposal. However, the plan had to be abandoned due to strong opposition from the artist. This highlights the challenges the UK government faces in catering to artificial intelligence.
At the same time, US venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz called for loosening regulations.
Andreessen Horowitz said in submissions to the UK House of Lords that the race to launch the new technology has "significant economic and ideological implications".
Andreesse Horowitz, who invests in technology giants such as Facebook, Instagram and Airbnb, warned that excessive regulation could cause the West to fall behind in areas such as cybersecurity, intelligence and warfare.