Game of Thrones Author and Other Writers File a Complaint Against the Company Behind ChatGPT

George RR Martin, author of the ‘Game of Thrones’ series, and sixteen other writers have accused the American company OpenAI of using their works to train a computer model ‘without permission’.

This artificial intelligence (AI) model forms the basis of ChatGPT, software capable of producing all kinds of texts after a simple request.

“At their core, these algorithms are systematic theft on a large scale,” the lawyers ruled. The demand was organized by the Author’s Guild, an American advocacy group for writers. In addition to George RR Martin, authors John Grisham, David Baldacci, Sylvia Day, and Jonathan Franzen also joined. The complaint was filed Tuesday in a federal court in New York.

Many other artists, organizations and programmers have already filed complaints against OpenAI or its competitors. “The language model endangers the ability of writers to earn a living,” the lawyers said. ‘Everyone can automatically and free (or for a low price) generate texts for which they would otherwise pay writers.’

The lawyers also note that the AI tool can produce content based on the style of specific authors. “Unjustly and perversely… the deliberate copies of (the work of) the authors turn their books into the engine of their destruction,” the complaint said. The guild and the authors seek damages and a ban on using copyrighted books for language models “without express permission.”

OpenAI developed the chat robot based on countless texts that were available online. The company has not yet clarified which works or sites they used. OpenAI is already being sued in similar lawsuits.