Tomorrow’s Tech, Today: Innovation That Moves Us Forward
- Lawsuit warns generative AI could leave journalism broken beyond repair and calls it a snake eating its own tail.
- The suit alleges products like ChatGPT and CoPilot devour human-authored content, returning copies and derivative imitations for commercial gain.
- The Seattle Times suit is notable because Microsoft and OpenAI previously funded some of its journalism projects and fellowships.
- A Microsoft spokesperson said the company is "surprised" and willing to "sit down and explore solutions," according to GeekWire.
Two more news organizations are suing OpenAI and Microsoft over the supposed use of their journalism to train AI.
A lawsuit filed by The Seattle Times and Newsday argued that with the advent of AI, the journalism industry could become “broken beyond repair.” The lawsuit described generative AI as “a snake eating its own tail” that could “destroy the very organizations” that produce the content it’s trained on.
“AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are touted as producers of content, but in fact they are rapacious consumers, devouring human-authored content and delivering back to the world copies and derivative imitations of that same original content they consumed to achieve their commercial objectives,” the lawsuit said.
Back in 2023, The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner/investor Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement; other publications have followed suit as the case continued. The Seattle Times’ lawsuit is particularly notable because Microsoft and OpenAI have funded some of the organization’s journalism projects and fellowships.
A Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire that the company is “surprised by the lawsuit” but is “always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.”
Read the full article on the original site
