Two more news organizations are suing OpenAI and Microsoft over their journalism allegedly being used to train AI.
A lawsuit filed by The Seattle Times and Newsday argued that the advent of AI could “irreparably fracture” the journalism industry. The complaint states that generative AI is a “snake that eats its own tail” and has the potential to “destroy the very organizations” that generate the content it was trained to produce.
“Although AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are touted as content producers, they are actually voracious consumers, devouring human-created content and sending back into the world copies and derivative imitations of the same original content they consumed to achieve their commercial ends,” the complaint states.
Back in 2023, the New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner/investor Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement. As the lawsuit continued, other publications followed suit. The Seattle Times case is particularly noteworthy because Microsoft and OpenAI fund some of the organization’s journalism projects and fellowships.
A Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire that the company is “surprised by the lawsuit,” but is “always willing to sit down and seek a resolution to these types of disputes.”
