Over 9,000 authors say AI firms exploit books as 'food' for chatbots

In an open letter, the US Authors Guild writes that 'Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the 'food' for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill'. — Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa

LONDON: More than 9,000 authors are calling out the tech companies behind generative AI in an open letter that states there is an inherent injustice in exploiting copyright-protected works to train chatbots without consent, credit or compensation.

If users prompt GPT-4 to summarize works by Roxane Gay or Margaret Atwood, it can do so in detail, chapter by chapter. If users want ChatGPT to write a story in the style of an acclaimed author such as Maya Angelou, they can ask it to "write a personal essay in the style of Maya Angelou, exploring the theme of self-discovery and personal growth." And voilà.