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OpenAI CEO says company will pay cost of legal actions of users who face copyright infringement

With the murkiness of content ownership and copyright protection surrounding AI, Sam Altman is prepared to defend his customers.

Sam Chandler

November 6, 2023 4:45 PM

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Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has made the bold statement that the company will defend its customers against the legal actions of copyright infringement claims. This comes at a time when various industries are pushing back against the idea of using copyrighted material to train AI technology.

On Monday, November 6, 2023, OpenAI announced its GPT-4 Turbo AI during its OpenAI DevDay. Aside from the details surrounding the new version, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also made comments regarding the company’s stance on protecting its users when it comes to copyright infringement claims, as reported by Hayden Field of CNBC.

According to Altman, OpenAI will “pay the costs incurred if you face legal claims around copyright infringement.” Legal ownership of work is a hot button issue in this new age of artificial intelligence, with the likes of Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan calling AI a “plagiarism machine”.

Then there are renowned authors such as George R.R. Martin, who recently sued OpenAI over copyright infringement. The filing describes ChatGPT as “systematic theft on a mass scale” with Authors Guild CEO Mary Rosenberger starting, “It is imperative that we stop this theft in its tracks or we will destroy our incredible literary culture, which feeds many other creative industries in the U.S.” Despite these strong words and the opposition against using copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence, Altman maintains that OpenAI will “step in and defend our customers”.

Companies have continued to pour billions of dollars into the advancement of artificial intelligence. While early AI was used in computing power and automation, recently AI has been used to do creative things, like write and create imagery, with much pushback from the community. Ubisoft recently felt the brunt of this when its Nederland account made a post on X (formerly Twitter) that used an AI-generated image of Assassin’s Creed.

There are problems beyond taking jobs from the creative industry and copyright infringement too. Researchers have accidentally leaked Microsoft data when attempting to upload open-source code to help train AI models. Midjourney also paused free trials over deepfake concerns.

With more companies looking to get on the artificial intelligence bandwagon, there’s a strong push for more regulation. The Biden administration has signed an executive order for new AI safety standards, but companies like Del Complex are trying to work around this. And now with OpenAI positioning itself to defend customers over copyright infringement claims, the water is getting murkier. It will be interesting to see how many fingers we need in order to count the number of AI stories and legal proceedings that pop up over the continued use of artificial intelligence. 

Sam Chandler

Guides Editor

Hailing from the land down under, Sam Chandler brings a bit of the southern hemisphere flair to his work. After bouncing round a few universities, securing a bachelor degree, and entering the video game industry, he's found his new family here at Shacknews as a Guides Editor. There's nothing he loves more than crafting a guide that will help someone. If you need help with a guide, or notice something not quite right, you can message him on X: @SamuelChandler