AI Ethics: Intellectual Property Rights

"[A.I.] technology itself is exciting, but the way content is sourced for the datasets is, frankly, unethical. In a world in which we're required to trade our labor for money to survive, I don't see how anyone can justify thousands of writers, artists, musicians, and other creatives not being compensated for use of their work in these AI models - and all without their consent."

--Jes Negron, author & video game developer

When OpenAI scrapes the internet to train ChatGPT, it doesn't ask anyone for permission to use their information or data, much less pay for it. They simply take whatever they want. This demonstrates a complete disregard for the concept of intellectual property rights. We should own our ideas, data, and the information we create, and have the right to decide how it is used, but this is not the case with ChatGPT.

You can use ChatGPT to compose a new song in the style of Taylor Swift, or you can, as some enterprising individuals have done, use it to write the final Game of Thrones book (since George R.R. Martin seems in no hurry to do so). ChatGPT can accomplish this because its training included consuming all of Taylor Swift's songs, and all of George R.R. Martin's books. But Taylor Swift and George R.R. Martin never gave OpenAI permission to use their copyrighted material. Likewise, AI art programs can make art in the style of famous artists because they have been trained on their art, but again, never asked for permission, and OpenAI even tried to steal Scarlett Johansson's voice! (see case study below) 

This intellectual property theft has led to lawsuits against OpenAI, including a major one filed by Martin and a number of other high-profile authors, demanding compensation for the use of their materials. And when the European Parliament's legislation required AI companies to abide by copyright law, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman threatened to pull ChatGPT from Europe, essentially admitting it could not operate within the constraints of the law.

One of the central principles of academic scholarship is providing credit to those whose ideas we use. This is one of the reasons you are required to cite your sources in research papers. ChatGPT does not provide credit to anyone whose ideas it uses, and so we cannot know where its ideas are coming from, or who created them.