A new lawsuit against OpenAI could decide whether the company’s use of training data scraped from the public internet may continue. Credit: Andrey Popov / Getty Images OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed company that developed the ChatGPT generative AI chatbot, is the defendant in a federal class action lawsuit filed this week in California, where it is accused of misappropriating personal information for training purposes. The complaint, filed in the Northern District of California, lists 15 causes of action, including violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and several state consumer rights laws and common-law torts. The claims center on the idea that OpenAI essentially “stole” the plaintiffs’ private information and used it to create a highly valuable product without compensation. “OpenAI used the stolen data to train and develop [ChatGPT] utilizing large language models … and deep language algorithms to analyze and generate human-like language that can be used for a wide range of applications,” the complaint said. By taking data from the public internet that nevertheless contained personally identifiable information, the plaintiffs contend, OpenAI has violated their privacy. (The identities of the plaintiffs were not fully disclosed in the complaint, which asked the court for permission to keep them private, in the hope of avoiding “intrusive scrutiny.”) In addition to monetary damages, the plaintiffs asked to take a number of corrective actions against OpenAI’s alleged misdeeds, including the establishment of an independent AI council for governance and open access to all personal information collected by OpenAI. The case is likely to test the assumption that the use of data from the public internet for AI training constitutes fair use under US copyright law, which would mean that AI creators like OpenAI couldn’t be held liable for violating copyright. While the complaint does not discuss the fair use argument in detail, a second class action suit — this one initiated by two Massachusetts-based authors — more directly alleges copyright violations by OpenAI in regard to the authors’ material being used to help train AI. “Because the OpenAI Language Models cannot function without the expressive information extracted from Plaintiffs’ works (and others) and retained inside them, the OpenAI Language Models are themselves infringing derivative works,” according to the complaint in that case, also filed in the Northern District of California. OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Related content news analysis Apple earnings: About that iPhone 'slump' in China Based on information from Thursday's earnings report, it seems that data pointing to an iPhone slump in China were over-baked. By Jonny Evans May 03, 2024 9 mins iMac iPhone Apple news Microsoft begins to phase out ‘classic’ Teams Microsoft is encouraging Teams customers to move to the new, faster version of the collaboration app; the older version will be switched off next year. By Matthew Finnegan May 03, 2024 3 mins Microsoft Teams Collaboration Software Productivity Software news analysis Apple confirms it will open up the iPad in Europe this fall The latest efforts to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act mean developers can offer to side load apps to both iPhones and iPads in the EU. Apple has also taken steps to improve what it offers to smaller and non-commercial developers in the By Jonny Evans May 02, 2024 6 mins iPad Apple Mobile Apps news Udacity offers laid-off US workers free access to its courses for 30 days Sign-ups will be available over the next 30 days By Lucas Mearian May 02, 2024 4 mins Technology Industry IT Jobs IT Skills Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe