On Sept. 19, The Authors Guild, alongside well-known writers like George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, and John Grisham, filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI over allegations that its product, ChatGPT, illegally made use of their copyrighted works. This lawsuit comes in the wake of a series of similar legal actions aimed at other technology giants, such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta. Undoubtedly, the growing and widespread use of generative artificial intelligence technology (AI) brings with it an assortment of novel legal issues, affecting businesses and people alike.
What Is Generative AI?
In a broad sense, generative AI is a deep-learning model that learns from existing data to generate new content. Using this technology, OpenAI introduced its own generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT. ChatGPT, like other models, can respond to requests inputted by the user and generate articles, essays, pictures, and even books just as if they were written or drawn by a human. Notepads filled with scribbles from a meeting? ChatGPT will turn them into an organized action item list. Forgot Valentine’s Day? ChatGPT can create a customized card, quoting the entire works of William Shakespeare. The possibilities are endless.
