OpenAI alleges that the New York Times manipulated ChatGPT for copyright lawsuit

OpenAI has requested a federal judge to throw out certain aspects of the copyright lawsuit filed by the New York Times, claiming that the newspaper manipulated its chatbot ChatGPT and other AI systems to produce deceptive evidence for the lawsuit.

OpenAI said in a filing Monday in federal court in Manhattan that the Times caused the technology to reproduce its material with “deceptive prompts in flagrant violation of OpenAI’s terms of service.”

“The allegations in the Times’ complaint do not meet its famously rigorous journalistic standards,” OpenAI said. “The truth that will emerge during this case is that the Times paid someone to hack OpenAI’s products.”

OpenAI did not name the “gun for hire” it said the Times used to manipulate its systems, nor did it accuse the newspaper of violating any anti-hacking laws.

Representatives for the New York Times and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the filing.

The Times sued OpenAI and its biggest financial backer, Microsoft, in December, accusing them of using millions of its articles without permission to train chatbots to provide information to users.

The Times is one of several copyright holders who have sued tech companies for allegedly misusing their work in AI training, including writers’ groups, visual artists and music publishers.

Tech companies have said their artificial intelligence systems use copyrighted material fairly, and that the lawsuits threaten the growth of a potential multi-trillion dollar industry.

Courts have yet to address the key question of whether AI training qualifies as fair use under copyright law. So far, judges have dismissed some infringement claims against the output of generative AI systems because there is no evidence that AI-generated content resembles copyrighted works.

The New York Times complaint cited several instances where OpenAI and Microsoft’s chatbots gave users almost verbatim excerpts of their articles when requested. It accused OpenAI and Microsoft of trying to “take advantage of the Times’ enormous investment in its journalism” and create a substitute for the newspaper.

OpenAI said in its filing that the Times required “tens of thousands of attempts to produce highly abnormal results.”

“Ordinarily, ChatGPT cannot be used to display Times articles at will,” OpenAI said.

OpenAI’s filing also said that it and other AI companies will ultimately win their case based on the issue of fair use.

“The Times cannot prevent AI models from obtaining factual information, and another news organization cannot prevent the Times itself from re-reporting stories it had no role in investigating,” OpenAI said.