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Just saw this article posted:

Authors sue OpenAI, allege their books were used to train ChatGPT without their consent

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/05/autho...

Key Points

Two authors filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging that their copyrighted books were used to train ChatGPT without their consent.
Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad claim that ChatGPT generates “very accurate summaries” of their works, according to the complaint.
They allege the summaries are “only possible” if ChatGPT was trained on their books, which would be a violation of copyright law.

For the hell of it, I tried chatGPT a while back by posing a challenge to produce a tarot card reading similar to the one I wrote about in my YA novel The Hypnotist. I gave the AI program the same five cards I used, and was surprised at the reading it produced. The language was similar to that found in a source I had read to learn tarot card reading for the purpose of writing the novel. The thought occurred to me the AI program had plagiarized portions of the tarot card book. It also occurred to me it was only a matter of time before lawsuits such as the once cited here were filed.

Wow, interesting. Makes sense.

Pandora's Box comes to mind.

That's what the actors and writers are stuck on with the strike.

Coming late to this, but from what I've been able to figure out, it's likely to be trickier than that from a legal perspective. Myself, I think the issue would be does the output actually duplicate portions of the input in a way that would violate fair use. Basically, if a human author could be sued for plagiarism, it seems the owners/trainers of the system ought to be bound by the same rules.

However (and this is where it gets tricky), nobody would sue us for reading books and using information in them to produce a new work, so long as we wrote it in our own words. There's an argument to be made that training a system on an author's works is no different from one author reading another author's works. The input isn't illegal, it's only what happens on the output side.

I've been told that at least in ChatGPT 4, that isn't happening, although I haven't used it myself. (I had one weird experience with the prior version, 3.5, in which it got nearly everything wrong, but that's another matter.)

"There's an argument to be made that training a system on an author's works is no different from one author reading another author's works. The input isn't illegal, it's only what happens on the output side."

Agree! It's when it starts copying a work that the trouble begins.

It's bad enough when someone pinches your title or comes close!

Haha...one of my books is titled "Cold Blood." (There are a ton of books with that title LOL)

Perhaps we should all retrain as barristers as I foresee some big fees to these good folk as they prosecute or defend.

Perhaps it's my sci-fi leanings here, but how is any of this AI? Artificial intelligence implies the ability of a system to think on its own. All I see here are algorithms created by people scraping data from the internet.

Start to worry when the algorithm creates itself.

Eldon, by the way, two of your books hit me in the face when I was looking at books on 'zon. Great big pics.

Anna wrote: "Eldon, by the way, two of your books hit me in the face when I was looking at books on 'zon. Great big pics."

Great big pics? You mean ads? Cause I'm not running any lol

It was some sort of recommendation from Amazon as to what I might like to read. I was researching something and two of your books popped up - yes, great big pics - as I scrolled down. I was searching to see if I could pick out AI books (a quick 5 minutes with my cuppa) and Amazon decided I might like some help. I should have printed the screen! Anyway, I just thought you might like to know that they are giving you a helping hand.

Anna wrote: "It was some sort of recommendation from Amazon as to what I might like to read. I was researching something and two of your books popped up - yes, great big pics - as I scrolled down. I was searchi..."

Nice to hear they're doing something for me :) Of course, they've also recommended my book to ME in an email, so not everything they do is golden lol

Eldon wrote: "Perhaps it's my sci-fi leanings here, but how is any of this AI? Artificial intelligence implies the ability of a system to think on its own. All I see here are algorithms created by people scrapin..."

Yeah, well, that's because of the history of the field, not what it actually does. ;-) Way back in the early days, the idea was, since the brain is just a meat computer, we ought to be able to figure out how to duplicate it with circuitry. Of course, it turned out to be a lot harder than that, but the dream was to create "artificial intelligence," and the name stuck. There are AI researchers who will tell you that even modern systems aren't really "intelligent" in anything like the way we are, but you don't hear that admission too often in public.

Dale wrote: "Eldon wrote: "Perhaps it's my sci-fi leanings here, but how is any of this AI? Artificial intelligence implies the ability of a system to think on its own. All I see here are algorithms created by ..."

Thanks Dale :)

My pleasure!

Now this is starting to get really strange:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/tech/a...

Unfortunately, it was to be expected. People will always find ways to use technology to scam others. This is probably just the first wave of AI scams. I've been wondering for a month or two now what happens when scammers get their mitts on this stuff and use it to create robocalls, emails, and other forms of communication impersonating legitimate entities in order to trick or frighten people into forking over their cash. It's going to happen, probably sooner than later.

I agree...horrific consequences!

I didn't expect it to happen so soon.

It's one of the issues of the strike in Hollywood.

Who would ever have thought that Hollywood would go on strike. Our refuse collectors have just voted to strike - but Hollywood?

I know. It's nuts. Wait until they completely run out of content to watch. They're airing thirty years old television shows.

Here in the UK we have channels totally devoted to showing programmes going way back. Films from the 1930s, sitcoms from the 60s and so on but I'd hate to be missing out on some of the new stuff coming through. I do hope it is resolved soon as many in this world love Hollywood films. It's reminded me that I visited one of the film studios when I went to LA for work. Fascinating.

There's still some new material in the offing. Apple TV just wrapped up an 8-part docuseries on Benjamin Franklin starring Michael Douglas that I assume will be aired early next year.