Authors Mona Awad, Paul Tremblay sue OpenAI for copyright abuse

Authors Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay brought the first copyright lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly 'ingesting' their novels to train ChatGPT and then regurgitating them as summaries.

Awad, the author of Bunny and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, and Paul Tremblay, writer of The Cabin at the End of the World, claimed their books were used to train ChatGPT, according to the complaint. They also said ChatGPT generated 'very accurate' summaries of their books when prompted, 'something only possible if ChatGPT was trained on Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.'

The complaint stated that OpenAI 'unfairly' profits from 'stolen writing and ideas' and argued for monetary damages for US-based authors whose works were allegedly used to train ChatGPT. 

OpenAI has not disclosed which datasets or books were used to train ChatGPT.