UPSC EDITORIAL ANALYSIS : New York Times vs OpenAI: Is there a case for copyright?
Kartavya Desk Staff
Source: Indian Express
• Prelims: Science and technology, Artificial intelligence(AI), Generative AI, Big Data, GANs, ChatGPT1 tool, DALL.E2, copyright etc
• Mains GS Paper III and IV: Significance of technology for India, AI, indigenisation of technology and development of new technology.
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
• The New York Times (NYT) in 2023 sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement.
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
Artificial intelligence(AI):
• It is a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers.
• It describes the action of machines accomplishing tasks that have historically required human intelligence.
• It includes technologies like machine learning, pattern recognition, big data, neural networks, self algorithms etc.
• g: *Facebook’s facial recognition software which identifies faces in the photos we post, the voice recognition software that translates commands we give to Alexa*, etc are some of the examples of AI already around us.
Generative AI:
• It is a cutting-edge technological advancement that utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence to create new forms of media, such as text, audio, video, and animation.
• With the advent of advanced machine learning capabilities: It is possible to generate new and creative short and long-form content, synthetic media, and even deep fakes with simple text, also known as prompts.
• Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) will transform into Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which can mimic the capabilities of human beings.
• It will dramatically improve the standard of living of millions of human beings.
• Negative impact: AI would undermine human values and that advanced AI could pose ‘existential risks’.
AI innovations:
• GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks)
• LLMs (Large Language Models)
• GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformers)
• Image Generation to experiment
• Create commercial offerings like DALL-E for image generation
• ChatGPT for text generation. It can write blogs, computer code, and marketing copies and even generate results for search queries.
• It can write blogs, computer code, and marketing copies and even generate results for search queries.
Copyright:
• is a legal right that protects original works of literature, art, music, films, and computer programs, among others, in India.
• It safeguards expressions of ideas rather than the ideas themselves.
• The owner of a copyright has exclusive rights to adapt, reproduce, publish, translate, and communicate the work to the public.
Petition by NYT:
• It alleges that the “defendants’ generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools rely on large-language models (‘LLMs’) that were built by copying
• It used millions of Times copyrighted news articles, in depth investigations, opinion pieces, reviews, how-to-guides, and more.
• The NYT argues that the Constitution and the Copyright Act recognise the “critical importance of giving creators exclusive rights over their works”.
• They argue that “powered by LLMs containing copies of Times content,
• Defendant’s Gen AI tools can generate output that recites Times content verbatim, closely summarizes it, and mimics its expressive style.
• Defendants use Microsoft’s Bing search index, which copies and categorizes the Times articles that are significantly longer and more detailed than those returned by traditional search engines.”
• The core argument of the NYT: The outputs of “Defendants’ GenAI models compete with and closely mimic the inputs used to train them” copying NYT works and hence is not fair use.
• The NYT’s petition includes extracts from searches conducted on ChatGPT, and Bing Chat (Microsofts’ GenerativeAI) that are alleged to throw up NYT articles verbatim.
Reply of OpenAI:
• OpenAI responds that “the Times paid someone to hack OpenAI’s products.
• It took the newspaper ten of thousands of attempts to generate the “highly anomalous results” that constitute the illustrations in the complaint.
• NYT targeted and exploited a bug by using deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI’s terms of use.
Reply by Microsoft:
• It compared the New York Times lawsuit to the one waged by the Motion Picture Association of America and Hollywood against the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder). When the VCR was first introduced, the entertainment industry claimed that it violated copyright. The US Supreme Court rejected the alarmism and voted for technological innovation and consumer choice (Sony Corp of America vs Universal City Studios, Inc)
• When the VCR was first introduced, the entertainment industry claimed that it violated copyright.
• The US Supreme Court rejected the alarmism and voted for technological innovation and consumer choice (Sony Corp of America vs Universal City Studios, Inc)
Ethical Issues with AI:
Way Forward
• News conglomerates have not all chosen to fight the use of their work product to feed the insatiable appetite of AI. Some have joined hands with it. The large European news conglomerate Axel Springer has announced a partnership with OpenAI to “strengthen independent journalism in the age of AI”.
• The large European news conglomerate Axel Springer has announced a partnership with OpenAI to “strengthen independent journalism in the age of AI”.
• As The New York Times Co v Microsoft Corp et al weaves its way through the court system, more such challenges for the law will emerge as AI swiftly takes over how humans access, process and pay for news and creative work.
• AI swiftly takes over how humans access, process and pay for news and creative work.
• The dangers associated with AI pose a greater threat than harm arising from bias in design and development.
• Elections apart, India being one of the most advanced countries in the digital arena, again needs to treat AI as an unproven entity.
• While AI brings benefits, the nation and its leaders should be fully aware of its disruptive potential.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
What are the different elements of cyber security ? Keeping in view the challenges in cyber security, examine the extent to which India has successfully developed a comprehensive National Cyber Security Strategy.(UPSC 2022) (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
Editorial Analysis – 6 April 2024