The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement and unlawful use of the newspaper's articles to train their artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, ChatGPT. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Manhattan, claims that the companies used The Times's copyrighted pieces to build their large-language models, resulting in a product that competes with the newspaper as a source of reliable information. The legal filing alleges that billions of dollars in damages are owed for the "unlawful copying and use of The Times's uniquely valuable works."

Generative chatbots like ChatGPT are trained on data sources called large-language models, allowing them to provide detailed answers to user questions. However, The Times argues that OpenAI and Microsoft used its articles without permission or payment to create substitutive products. The court filing states that the defendants, through Microsoft's Bing Chat (recently rebranded as "Copilot") and OpenAI's ChatGPT, sought to “free-ride” on The Times's significant investment in journalism.

The lawsuit claims that the defendants were aware of the particular value of New York Times articles, as they were given "particular emphasis" when building the data sets for their AI models. Negotiations between the parties had been ongoing for months but failed to reach a resolution. In the past, The Times had struck deals with other tech giants such as Google, Meta, and Apple for the use of its content in digital news products.

Microsoft, which has heavily invested in AI and integrated it into its products like Azure and Bing, has seen significant financial returns. The court document highlights a trillion-dollar boost in the value of Microsoft shares over the past year and OpenAI's valuation reaching a high of $90 billion. Several other organizations and individuals, including comedian Sarah Silverman, Getty Images, and authors Jonathan Franzen and John Grisham, have also taken legal action against OpenAI.

The New York Times's lawsuit is part of a broader trend of legal action against AI companies that allegedly scrape copyrighted content from the internet to train their models. Actors, writers, journalists, and other creators fear that AI will learn from their work and provide competitive chatbots and information sources without proper compensation. The Times's complaint is the first major news publisher's attempt to challenge OpenAI and Microsoft, two prominent AI brands.

The Times argues that Microsoft and OpenAI's use of its work is not considered "fair use," as claimed by the defendants. The complaint states that ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing chatbot provide a similar service to the newspaper, posing a threat to its ability to inform subscribers. The Times had objected to the use of its content months ago and began negotiations for fair compensation, but no resolution was reached.

In response to concerns about AI's use of their content, The Times and other newsrooms, including CNN, have implemented measures to block OpenAI's web crawler, GPTBot, from scanning their platforms. Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors previously sued Meta and OpenAI, alleging that their AI language models were trained on copyrighted materials from their books without consent. A judge dismissed most of the claims in November.

The lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft reflects the growing pushback against AI companies using copyrighted content without proper compensation. As the legal battle unfolds, it will have significant implications for the future of AI development and the protection of intellectual property rights.