The New York Times is taking action to combat the potential harm of artificial intelligence on the media industry. On Wednesday, the newspaper filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, aiming to stop the use of its articles for training chatbots.

According to The Times, these companies are jeopardizing its existence by essentially appropriating billions of dollars’ worth of content from its journalists, in certain instances directly copying the Times’ material for individuals who use generative artificial intelligence, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, for information. The newspaper has taken legal action by filing a lawsuit in a federal court in Manhattan after negotiations with the two companies broke down in April.

The press has already been heavily impacted by a shift of readers to digital platforms. Although some publications, such as the Times, have effectively established a presence online, the swift advancement of AI poses a major threat to the publishing sector.

The newspaper states that web traffic is crucial for its advertising income and also plays a role in increasing subscriptions to its website. However, the use of AI chatbots results in diverting this traffic away from the paper and other copyright owners, making it less probable for users to access the original source of information.

Ian B. Crosby, a partner and lead counsel at Susman Godfrey, who is representing The Times, stated that these bots are in competition with the content they have been trained on.

According to a statement from an OpenAI representative, the company values the rights of creators and is dedicated to collaborating with them in order to support their use of the technology and explore potential revenue opportunities.

The spokesperson stated that their discussions with the New York Times have been productive and are continuing positively. They expressed surprise and disappointment with this recent development. They remain optimistic about finding a mutually beneficial way to collaborate, similar to their partnerships with other publishers.

There has been no response from Microsoft regarding requests for comment.

Companies specializing in artificial intelligence gather data from various online sources, such as news articles, to educate their generative chatbots. These advanced language models are also trained on a vast collection of human-written content, allowing them to develop a thorough understanding of language and syntax and accurately respond to inquiries.

However, the technology is currently in the process of being developed and may have some inaccuracies. In the lawsuit, The New York Times stated that OpenAI’s GPT-4 falsely attributed product suggestions to Wirecutter, the newspaper’s platform for product evaluations, potentially damaging its credibility.

In recent times, the technology sector has seen a surge in investments, specifically in OpenAI and other AI companies such as Anthropic. This rapid increase in funding can be attributed to the growing interest from the public and businesses in AI, especially in the current year.

Microsoft has a partnership with OpenAI that allows it to capitalize on the company’s AI technology. The Redmond, Washington, tech giant is also OpenAI’s biggest backer and has invested at least $13 billion into the company since the two began their partnership in 2019, according to the lawsuit. As part of the agreement, Microsoft’s supercomputers help power OpenAI’s AI research and the tech giant integrates the startup’s technology into its products.

The paper has raised concerns about the increasing number of legal cases being brought against OpenAI for violating copyright laws. Numerous writers, such as comedian Sarah Silverman, have filed lawsuits against the company, claiming that their books were used to train OpenAI’s AI models without their consent. In June, over 4,000 writers joined together to send a letter to the CEOs of OpenAI and other tech companies, accusing them of unethical practices in creating chatbots.

As artificial intelligence advances, concerns about its implementation have led to labor protests and legal action in various fields, such as the entertainment industry. Various groups are recognizing that this technology has the potential to disrupt their entire business model, prompting the question of how to address it. According to Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute, finding a response will be crucial.

According to Kreps, she concurs that The New York Times is at risk from these chatbots. However, she also contended that finding a complete solution will be a difficult challenge.

She stated that there are numerous other language models performing identical tasks.

On Wednesday, the lawsuit referenced instances of OpenAI’s GPT-4 generating substantial portions of news articles from the Times, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into New York City’s taxi industry that required 18 months to finish. It also mentioned outputs from Bing Chat – now known as Copilot – that included word-for-word excerpts from Times articles.

The Times did not list specific damages that it is seeking, but said the legal action “seeks to hold them responsible for the billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages that they owe” for copying and using its work. It is also asking the court to order the tech companies to destroy AI models or data sets that incorporate its work.

The Times’ decision, which was praised by the News/Media Alliance, a trade association that represents over 2,200 news outlets, was made on Wednesday.

“According to Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the alliance, the combination of quality journalism and GenAI can work together effectively through collaboration. However, utilizing journalism without authorization or compensation is against the law and goes against the principles of fair use.”

In July, OpenAI and The Associated Press reached an agreement for the artificial intelligence company to use AP’s collection of news articles. This month, OpenAI also formed a similar collaboration with Axel Springer, a media company based in Berlin that possesses Politico and Business Insider. As part of the deal, individuals using OpenAI’s ChatGPT will be provided with condensed versions of “chosen worldwide news content” from Axel Springer’s media outlets. According to the companies, the responses to inquiries will include proper credit and links to the original pieces.

The Times has likened its actions to a copyright lawsuit that occurred over 20 years ago involving Napster. In this case, record companies took legal action against the file-sharing service for unauthorized usage of their content. The record companies were successful and Napster eventually shut down, but it significantly influenced the music industry. The industry now heavily supports streaming services as the primary means of music distribution.

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This story was enhanced by the contributions of AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien.

Source: wral.com