2y ago

'Game of Thrones' creator and other authors sue ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for copyright infringement

NEW YORK (AP) — John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and George R.R. Martin are among 17 authors suing OpenAI for “systematic theft on a mass scale,” the latest in a wave of legal action by writers concerned that artificial intelligence programs are using their copyrighted works without permission.

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He's just angry ChatGPT could write a better ending to Game of Thrones than he did.
- And it did :
  Bran's Purpose: Bran utilizes his powers as the Three-Eyed Raven more effectively, revealing crucial historical and future events. Instead of becoming king, he serves as the realm's chief advisor, preserving history and ensuring the kingdom doesn't repeat past mistakes.
  Jon & Daenerys: Daenerys' descent into madness is slowed and more nuanced. She and Jon rule jointly for a time, focusing on uniting the kingdom and breaking the wheel. When it becomes clear that Daenerys can't escape her Targaryen instincts, a heartbroken Jon is forced to intervene. Instead of exile, Jon chooses to travel north to explore and possibly unite lands beyond the Wall.
  Sansa & Arya: Sansa is crowned Queen in the North, leading with wisdom and strength. Arya's adventures in the west are chronicled in a series of notes she sends back to Sansa, creating a connection between the Stark sisters and hinting at a larger world.
  Tyrion & Jaime: Tyrion remains as Hand, but to a council of leaders instead of one ruler, guiding the Seven Kingdoms with his wit and intelligence. Jaime's redemption arc culminates in him leaving Cersei and joining Brienne, training the next generation of knights.
  Cersei: Cersei's cunning leads her to form unexpected alliances, perhaps with the likes of Dorne, to try and reclaim the throne. Her end comes not from falling rubble, but in a more poetic fashion: perhaps poisoned, paralleling her own actions throughout the series.
  The Night King: The threat from the Night King is even more dire. Westeros needs to truly unite, with every faction playing a part, to fend off the undead threat. This culminates in a series of battles, not just one at Winterfell. The Night King's origin and motives are better explained, tying into the history of Westeros and the Children of the Forest.
  Iron Throne: In the end, the Iron Throne is melted down as a symbol of the old era. Westeros adopts a council-based rule where representatives from each kingdom have a say, embodying Daenerys' vision of "breaking the wheel."
  
  lmao GRRM got served by AI after years of unproductive pondering
From my understanding, unless ChatGPT spits out the copyrighted work, they don’t have a case here.
Using copyrighted works to train an LLM which can then generate similar works seems pretty solidly to be fair use.
I am not a lawyer though.
- I think it is probably more about how Books3 is and was always the full content of a torrent site for books.
  Fair Use is all fine and good but its very telling that these companies are happy to justify piracy when its convenient for them and then oppose it when it is not.
  It is rather hypocritical and there is also questions whether Fair Use can apply to a non-human. People generating art and text with it are in a weird grey area, because on one hand it can be argued they are using a tool, but on the other, the results are so random: how much influence does the user actually have over what they create? If the answer is "not much influence" then the tool is creating the art, not the person. At that point, is it really reasonable to argue "fair use?"
  
  Depending on the jurisdiction's particular laws, there are places where downloading pirated material is perfectly legal and it's just the uploading of the pirated material that's a breach of copyright. In those places you can legally download a pirated torrent if your upstream speed is zero.
  Furthermore, I expect it's an open question whether the "they got this text illegally" thing will mean "therefore the stuff they used it to make is also illegal." It might be that they can sue for the piracy and get a payout for that, but that the AI model itself remains just fine.
  Interesting times, the laws were very much not written with this stuff in mind.
- I respectively disagree there. If a writer didn't give any concent whatsoever to give an A.I. a copy of their written works for an A.I. to train or base anything on. I think it's a fair case of theft. Theoretically, someone would be able ask an A.I. to recite an entire book for them. Without ever having to pay its author any contribution.
  
  Did the writer give me permission to read their book, which I used to learn to write better and sell those works?
  Did Michelangelo give every art student that learned from his works permission to learn from his work and then produce works in a similar style on their own to sell for profit?
  
  (I think you're arguing from an ethical standpoint whereas OP was arguing legally, but anyway....)
  Theoretically, someone would be able ask an A.I. to recite an entire book for them
  No, that shouldn't happen. If an AI were ever able to recite back its training data verbatim, that AI would be overfitting. It happens by accident sometimes early on in development when your training data is too small and your model is too big, but it's an error, and is something to be avoided and corrected.
  The whole point of training is to get it to a point where it can't recite back any of its training data. In order for that to happen, the AI is forced to sort of generalize and abstract (sorry for anthropomorphizing) its training data. That's the only way to get it to be able to generate something new, which is the whole point of the endeavour.
  Long story short, if an AI could recite back an entire book, by definition it could not be an AI, and it wouldn't resemble any of the popular LLMs we have now like ChatGPT. (But you may see snippets and pastiches and watermarks show up)

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