The New York Times has sued Microsoft and OpenAI for using its content to help develop artificial intelligence services, in a sign of the increasingly fraught relationship between the media and a technology that could upend the news industry.
The technology firms relied on millions of copyrighted articles to train chatbots like OpenAI¡¯s ChatGPT and other AI features, allegedly causing billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages, according to a lawsuit filed in New York on Wednesday. The Times didn¡¯t specify its monetary demands.
OpenAI has faced criticism for scraping text widely from the web to train its popular chatbot since it debuted a year ago. While it has been sued by prominent authors, this is the first challenge to its practices by a major media organization. The startup has sought licensing deals with publishers, much like Alphabet¡¯s Google and Meta Platforms¡¯ Facebook have done in recent years. The Times¡¯ lawsuit said the publisher reached out to Microsoft and OpenAI in April and couldn¡¯t reach an amicable solution.
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