OpenAI Calls on U.S. Government to Let It Freely Use Copyrighted Material for AI Training

OpenAI, known for its ChatGPT chatbot, today submitted AI recommendations to the Trump administration, calling for deregulation and policies that give AI companies free rein to train models on copyrighted material in order to compete with China on AI development.

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AI companies cannot freely innovate while having to comply with "overly burdensome state laws," according to OpenAI. The company claims that laws regulating AI are "easier to enforce" with domestic companies, imposing compliance requirements that "weaken the quality and level of training data available to American entrepreneurs." OpenAI suggests that the government provide "private sector relief" from 781+ AI-related bills introduced in various states.

OpenAI outlines a "copyright strategy" that would preserve "American AI models' ability to learn from copyrighted material." OpenAI argues that AI models should be able to be trained freely on copyrighted data, because they are "trained not to replicate works for consumption by the public" and thus align with the fair use doctrine. With its AI copyright laws, OpenAI says that the European Union has repressed AI innovation and investment.

OpenAI claims that if AI models are not provided with fair use access to copyrighted data, the "race for AI is effectively over" and "America loses." OpenAI asks that the government prevent "less innovative countries" from "imposing their legal regimes on American AI firms."

For AI data sharing, OpenAI suggests a tiered system that would see AI tech shared with countries that follow "democratic AI principles," while blocking access to China and limiting access to countries that might leak data to China. The company also suggests government investment in utilizing AI technology and building out AI infrastructure.

The use of copyrighted material for AI training has angered artists, journalists, writers, and other creatives who have had their work absorbed by AI. The New York Times, for example, has sued Microsoft and OpenAI for training AI models on news articles. Many AI tools assimilate and summarize content from news sites, driving users away from primary sources and oftentimes providing incorrect information. Image generation engines like Dall-E and Midjourney have been trained on hundreds of millions images scraped from the internet, leading to lawsuits.

OpenAI has submitted its proposals to the Office of Science and Technology Policy for consideration during the development of a new AI Action Plan that is meant to "make people more productive, more prosperous, and more free." The full text is available on OpenAI's website.

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Top Rated Comments

NT1440 Avatar
9 weeks ago
Seriously, **** these guys. They’re just trying to build a plagiarism machine to threaten the labor workforce to “know their place”.

This is the corporate rebound from workers discovering their power in the COVID days…
Score: 60 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Aleh Avatar
9 weeks ago
This AI garbage seriously needs to be regulated MORE. The damn audacity to cry for deregulation is insane. I hope they all go bankrupt as soon as possible.
Score: 52 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Fuzzball84 Avatar
9 weeks ago
This is the hideous side of AI.

That they aren’t just generated by a team of tech whiz and a company with billions of dollars of investment. But they are generated from the real work of hundreds of millions of people from the beginning of recorded history. Work that without which such systems would never perform anywhere near as good as they are able to.

And now those companies want to ride over the copyrights and protections of that work, for no good reason other than it would be too burdensome and time consuming to do so.

How can we trust such companies if this is the morals they demonstrate? How do we trust that AI is for the benefit of society, when they disregard the rules that protect that same society?
Score: 48 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ProbablyDylan Avatar
9 weeks ago
While I generally find copyright law detestable and in need of reform, f*ck OpenAI and Sam Altman. If you can't afford to license material with your billions of investor money, you shouldn't use it.

In a perfect world we all play by the same rules. If you don't like them you push for systemic change, not exceptions.
Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)
xander49x Avatar
9 weeks ago
Welcome to capitalism at its worst, they should put more regulations on AI to put these companies in check.
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jz0309 Avatar
9 weeks ago

AI companies cannot freely innovate while having to comply with "overly burdensome state laws," according to OpenAI.
yea, the law is not for us ... there's a reason to boycott them, them being openai ...
With the current admin, not sure what the outcome will be ...
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)