The New York Times is suing OpenAI. Here's how it could affect OpenAI's ASU partnership
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OpenAI’s partnership with Arizona State University is the first of its kind, but it comes just weeks after the New York Times announced a lawsuit against the company behind ChatGPT.
The Times is claiming that OpenAI has used its paid content to train the language models it uses to power services like ChatGPT without paying the Times for the content.
In the complaint filed, the Times has asked the court to order OpenAI to destroy anything that violates its copyright, including its large language models. This is, in fact, possible, under 17 U.S.C. Section 503(b), which states that a court may order the destruction of all material which infringes upon copyright or allows the reproduction of material that infringes upon copyright.
Professor Gary Marchant, a Regents Professor of Law at ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, said he doesn't believe the court will go that far:
"This is now integrated across our society; the idea that we'd have to destroy all these is, to me, absolutely ludicrous. But there is a remedy for that under the copyright statute, so I think it's just leverage. The New York Times is using that as leverage," he said.
Marchant is also enthusiastic about ASU's partnership with OpenAI. He let his students use ChatGPT for his class in the 2023 fall semester.
"I was very impressed, and I can see how they can now use this when they get out of the law school and become lawyers; this is going to be very useful for them to be familiar with this technology," he said.
Marchant also added that he is a chair on a committee for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers that is working on developing a standard for the governance of artificial intelligence by entities that are either developing or using artificial intelligence.
